EN
This paper presents the results of: 1. measurements of selected parameters determining the rate of utterances, 2. comparative analyses of specific parameters in two study groups: physiologically ageing people, falling into the “old-old” category, and nine-year-old pupils with no developmental or language disorders. When gathering the study material with the use of measurement tools (the Audacity program) and its statistical processing (tests: Shapiro–Wilk, Mann–Whitney, Fisher–Snadecor), the following parameters-indicators allowing the prediction of the speech tempo were taken into consideration and analysed: 1. basic: the average speaking rate (speech sounds, syllables + duration of pauses), the average articulation rate (speech sounds, syllables), the average share of pauses in utterances (number + percentage data); 2. supplementary: the average duration of all pauses, the average duration of proper pauses, the average duration of filled pauses, the average duration of partly filled pauses.