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

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.