Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish preliminary data on the speech rates in groups of normal speaking adults and children. The results of the present study are intended to serve as clinical measurement guidelines for diagnosis, assessment, treatment planning, and therapy progresses of stuttering. Thirty-one adults (16 females, 15 males), aged 18-30 years and thirty normally developing children (15 females, 15 males), aged 8-10, participated in the study. The subjects' reading of the Stroll (Jeong, 1994) passage and l-minute portion of talking about the daily routine were sampled. The adult speakers had rates of $308.29\pm22.57$ syllables per minute (SPM) or $108.06\pm6.17$ words per minute (WPM) during reading, and $252.87\pm40.86$ SPM and $92.26\pm17.12$ WPM during talking. The children had rates of $176.67\pm33.65$ SPM or $64.07\pm12.62$ WPM during reading, and $149.30\pm33.14$ SPM and $56.60\pm11.36$ WPM during talking. The results of t-tests for reading and talking tasks in adults showed that SPM in reading (t=2.211, p< .05) and WPM in talking (t=-2.284, p< .05) differed significantly by the gender. To answer the questions whether the rate is different across children' s gender and age, a two-way ANOVA was performed. Both SPM and WPM in reading tasks were significantly different between groups of children aged 8 and 10 (p< 01), In speaking tasks, both SPM and WPM were significantly different between groups of children aged 8 and 10, and between 9 and 10.

Keywords

• Speech Rate;
• SPM;
• WPM