An alternative method of studying the development of speech rate

A number of experiments were carried out to investigate the development of speech rate in young children. More specifically, it was tested whether speech rate in a diadochokinetic task and the rate of spontaneous speech are age-related. To that end both types of speech were elicited in four age groups (approximately 5, 7, 9 and 11 years), each consisting of five girls and five boys. The main result of the measurements of the children's speech is that age and utterance length are independent in their effects on speech rate. Speech rate increases with age and is higher in long than in short utterances. Rate of spontaneous speech and the rate in diadochokinetic speech appear to be only weakly related. Boys do not perform differently from girls.