Background and Aim: Children with speech and language disorders can have reduced diadochokinesis (DDK) rates. Although a relationship has been proposed between DDK and the rate of speech, there is no consensus among the experts and its credibility remains questioned. The purpose of this study was to compare oral DKK with the rate of speech and reading in normal students.

Methods: One hundred second grade female students participated in this descriptive-comparative study. The subjects were asked to read a text of their book, tell a story, and perform some oral DDK tasks. The elapsed time was measured by Cool Edit software. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data. Data analysis was performed using Student t-test.

Results: Time history durations of DDK tasks /tâ/, /pâ/ and /kâ/ were 4.10, 4.15 and 4.74 ms, respectively. The rate of reading was 3.1 syllables per second and rate of talking was 2.8 syllables per second. No relationship between the rate of speech and DDK was found, still, we found a significant association between the reading rate and DDK in /kâ/ (p=0.03) and /pâtâkâ/ (P<0.01).

Conclusion: Relevant DDK tasks can be utilized in order to improve the reading rate. Reading rate was higher than speech rate and the rate of bilabial diadochokinesis in mono syllables is the highest rate that may be expected during the treatments.