Oral‐diadochokinetic rates among healthy Malaysian-Mandarin speakers: A cross linguistic comparison

Abstract

Purpose

This study examined the effects of non‐word versus real word, age, and gender on oral‐DDK rates among healthy Malaysian-Mandarin speakers. Comparison between non-word of Malaysian-Mandarin and Hebrew speakers was examined.

Method

One-hundred and seventeen speakers (18–83 years old, 46% men) were audio‐recorded while performing non-word (repetition of “pataka”) and real-word oral‐DDK tasks (“butter cake” and “怕他看 ([p^ha4t^ha1k^han4])”). The number of syllables produced in 8 seconds was counted from the audio recording to derive the oral-DDK rates. A MANOVA was conducted to compare the rates between age groups (young = 18–40 years, n = 56; middle = 41–60 years, n = 39; older = 61–83 years, n = 22) and gender. In a second analysis, “pataka” results were compared between this study and previous findings with Hebrew speakers

Result

No gender effects were found. However, rates significantly decreased with age (p < 0.001). Repetition of real words was faster than that of non-words – English words (5.55 ± 1.19 syllables/s) > non‐words (5.29 ± 1.23) > Mandarin words (4.91 ± 1.13). Malaysian-Mandarin speakers performed slower than Hebrew speakers on “pataka” task.

Conclusion

Aging has a large impact on oromotor functions, indicating that speech-language pathologists should consider using age-adjusted norms.

Keywords:

• oral-DDK
• adults
• Mandarin speakers
• non-word
• real-word

Acknowledgements

Special gratitude to Ms. Tan Shiau Yann for her time and effort in creating the stimuli cards for this study, and to Dr. Hanif Farhan Mohd Rasdi for his data analysis suggestions on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Supplemental material

A short video is uploaded on the website to show clinicians how to conduct the recording. Please note that this video is conducted in Mandarin (with English subtitles) so that SLPs could get an idea of typical instruction for their patients.

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2020.1808701

Notes

1 Define as Oral-DDK: Malaysian Mandarin speakers

Additional information

Funding

Supported in part by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education [FRGS/1/2018/SKK06/UKM/02/7] and the Australia-APEC Women in Science Research Fellowship (first author).