The aim of training for the hearing impaired children in auditory oral approach is to develop good speaking abilities. However profoundly hearing-impaired children show a wide range of spoken language abilities, some having highly intelligible speeches while others have unintelligible ones. This is due to hearing-impaired children's speech production. While hearing-impaired children speak, segmental and prosodic errors occur, so the intelligibility of their speeches is affected. Because of these segmental and prosodic errors, speaking rate of hearing-impaired children can be slower than that of hearing children. The aim of the current study is to find out if there are any differences between normal and hearing-impaired children's speech rate. Relationships between speech rate intelligibility, hearing loss, and ear-aided threshold of hearing impaired children were investigated as well. Twenty-five prelingual profound hearing-impaired high school students' speech samples were compared with those of 15 normal hearing students. Speech rate data was collected by means of a laryngograph, while speech intelligibility was decided through examining statements produced by naive listeners who rewrote statements of hearing impaired-children. Findings revealed a difference between speech rate of hearing and hearing impaired children and a relationship between speech rate and speech intelligibility. However, no relationship was found between hearing loss and speech rate, hearing loss and intelligibility, ear aided threshold and speech rate, and ear aided threshold and intelligibility. Implications for the education of hearing impaired children were provided. (Contains 2 tables.)