Irina Savolainen, PhD (Logopedics), is the Lead Researcher involved in the project Aided Communication in Rehabilitation. Her research primarily focuses on aided interaction and interventions designed to enhance aided communication. In her thesis, Savolainen explored the practices participants use to co-construct turns in aided conversations, employing conversation analysis as her method. Alongside her team, she has developed an intervention model named Reco (Relaxed Communication), which utilizes video reflections and is grounded in the principles of conversation analysis.
Lead Researcher
PhD, University Lecturer
irina.savolainen@helsinki.fi
Post-doctoral researcher Kirsi Neuvonen, PhD (Logopedics), contributes to the second part of the project by analyzing the changes after rehabilitation. Neuvonen defended her thesis at the University of Helsinki in 2023. In her thesis, she examined the meaning-negotiation strategies of young, aided communicators and their speaking communication partners. Her thesis was conducted as part of the international research project "Becoming Aided Communicator."
PhD, University Lecturer
kirsi.neuvonen@helsinki.fi
Doctoral researcher Sanna Marjamäki, MSocSci (Social Psychology), is responsible for the data analyses on the independent work package and publication of the results with the help of supervisors (Savolainen, Tiiitinen, Laakso). Marjamäki has a lot of clinical experience working as a rehabilitation counselor. Since 2020, she has worked as a lecturer in rehabilitation guidance and as a degree coordinator at the University of Applied Sciences. In her master's thesis, she studied expertise and professional identity through qualitative research.
MSocSci (Social Psychology), Doctoral Researcher
sanna.marjamaki@helsinki.fi
Marianna Hietaranta, MA (Logopedics), has served as a research assistant since the beginning of the project. Hietaranta is responsible for the technical implementation of RedCap surveys.
MA (Logopedics), Research Assistant
marianna.hietaranta@helsinki.fi
Additionally, the project has involved and continues to involve several short-term research assistants and master's level students in logopedics. Their tasks have included transcribing data, translating surveys, and developing websites.
Irina Savolainen works in the Reco team together with Anna-Kaisa Antila and Eeva Uoti.
Anna-Kaisa Antila, MA (Logopedics), is a member of the Reco team developing the Reco intervention and related training. She works as a speech and language therapist at the Valteri Centre for Learning and Consulting. Antila has extensive experience in facilitating interaction, communication, and inclusion for children who use communication aids. She conducts rehabilitation work in a multidisciplinary team in the various interactive situations of everyday school life.
MA (Logopedics)
Speech and language therapist, Valteri Centre for Learning and Consulting
Eeva Uoti is a member of the Reco team developing Reco intervention and related training. She is the mother of a school-aged child who uses a technical communication aid and participated in the pilot phase of Reco as the first client with her child. Uoti brings a parent's perspective to the Reco team's work on the use of communication aids as part of family life.
Parent to a child who uses AAC