In this paper, rate-dependent switching effects of ferroelastic materials are studied by means of a micromechanically motivated approach. The onset of domain switching is thereby initiated as soon as a related reduction in energy per unit volume exceeds a critical value. Subsequent nucleation and propagation of domain walls during switching process are incorporated via a linear kinetics theory. Along with this micromechanical model, intergranular effects are accounted for by making use of a probabilistic ansatz; to be specific, a phenomenologically motivated Weibull distribution function is adopted. In view of finite-element-based simulations, each domain is represented by a single finite element and initial dipole directions are randomly oriented so that the virgin state of the particular bulk ceramics of interest reflects an un-poled material. Based on a staggered iteration technique and straightforward volume averaging, representative stress versus strain hysteresis loops are computed for various loading amplitudes and frequencies. Simulation results for the rate-independent case are in good agreement with experimentally measure data reported in the literature and, moreover, are extended to rate-dependent computations.