Tempo wypowiedzi jako kategoria badawcza – w normie i w zaburzeniach

The article characterizes the pace of speech as a research category which gives us the ability to analyze both normative and impaired speech. The practical part consists of the description of the research process and the obtained results. It is preceded by the theoretical part which describes the notions of the pace of speech and the pace of utterance and their main components. Special emphasis has been put on the notion of pause. Additionally, selected quantitative and qualitative aspects of speech have been outlined, together with the ways of their analysis which include measuring tools (Audacity software) and statistical tests (Shapiro-Wilk, Mann-Whitney, Fisher-Snadecor).