Oral-diadochokinetic rate for healthy young Jordanian adults

ABSTRACT

We used a sequential motion rate (SMR) oral-diadochokinetic (oral-DDK) rate task to examine speech motor performance in healthy young adults. The goals of this study were to: (1) establish SMR oral-DDK rate values for healthy young adult Jordanians, (2) examine the effect of gender on oral-DDK rate, and (3) examine the trial-to-trial variability of mean oral-DDK rate in consecutive trials. One hundred and six healthy young adults (53 males and 53 females, age range 18–26) participated in this study. One hundred and six healthy young adults (53 males and 53 females, age range 18–26) participated in this study. Participants repeated the trisyllable /pataka/ as fast as they could in three consecutive trials. For each participant and group, (a) the number of syllables per second were examined and analyzed, and (b) the oral-DDK rate values were compared across the three trials in order to examine trial-to-trial variability. The results of the study indicated that: (1) SMR oral-DDK mean rate for the participants in the study was 6.57 syllables/s (SD = 0.84); (2) There were no significant differences between gender groups in oral-DDK rate; (3) Mean oral-DDK rate for repetitions was comparable across the three trials for participants. Gender does not seem to affect oral-DDK rate in healthy young adult Jordanian speakers. Also, performance is stable in consecutive trials of SMR oral-DDK rate tasks. Implications of these findings are presented and discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Oral-diadochokinetic rate
• sequential motion rate
• SMR
• speech motor abilities
• Arabic

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants for taking part in this study. We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Hana Kushha in participant recruitment and data collection, and Samar Haj-Tas and Safwat Jikat in data review and coding.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Disclosure of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.