Paper Title
ORAL DIADOCHOKINETIC RATES IN MALAYSIAN-MANDARIN AND JAPANESE YOUNG ADULTS: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

Abstract
Abstract - The influence of language on oral-diadochokinesis (O-DDK) performance among Malaysian-Mandarin speakers is well-established. However, there is a noticeable gap in the literature regarding the comparative analysis of O-DDK performance across languages commonly used in Asian regions. This study sought to compare O-DDK rates between healthy young adults from Malaysia who speak Mandarin and their Japanese counterparts. We recorded the O-DDK rates of 7 Malaysian participants and 8 Japanese participants. The stimuli consisted of three types: 1) single-syllable sounds /pa/, /ta/, /ka/, /sa/, /ra/; 2) a trisyllabic non-word sequence /pataka/; and 3) the Mandarin word "怕他看" ([pʰa4tʰa1kʰan4]) or the Japanese word "mataka," both representing real-words. We calculated the number of syllables produced within an 8-second timeframe. An independent t-test was conducted to assess the differences in O-DDK rates between Malaysian-Mandarin and Japanese healthy young adults. Our analysis revealed a significant difference in O-DDK rates (p < 0.05). Japanese young adults exhibited notably higher O-DDK rates compared to their Malaysian-Mandarin counterparts for each of the tested syllables: /pa/ (6.66 ± 0.52 syllables/s vs. 4.54 ± 0.17 syllables/s), /ta/ (7.16 ± 0.56 syllables/s vs. 4.95 ± 1.39 syllables/s), /ka/ (6.99 ± 0.35 syllables/s vs. 4.71 ± 1.42 syllables/s), /sa/ (6.31 ± 0.22 syllables/s vs. 4.32 ± 1.07 syllables/s), /ra/ (5.82 ± 0.75 syllables/s vs. 4.05 ± 1.05 syllables/s), /pataka/ (6.85 ± 0.56 syllables/s vs. 5.57 ± 0.14 syllables/s), and the real-word (6.80 ± 0.61 syllables/s vs. 5.20 ± 0.82 syllables/s). Our findings underscore the impact of language type on O-DDK rates, emphasizing the importance of considering language-specific norms when speech-language therapists assess patients for clinical purposes. Keywords - Japanese Speakers, Malaysia-Mandarin Speakers, Oral Diadochokinesis, Young Adults