Pragmatic development and its disorders

Pragmatic language comprehension in children with typical development, asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and specific language impairment

The main aim is to develop pragmatic comprehension test material for clinical use in order to investigate Finnish children’s pragmatic comprehension abilities and to define whether children’s pragmatic comprehension abilities in different clinical groups are on normal level, delayed or deviant. The data will consist of 180–200 normally developing 3- to 9-year-old children and about 15–20 children from each clinical group (AS/HFA, ADHD and SLI).

Main researcher:

  • Soile Loukusa, PhD, post-doctoral researcher, SLT

Collaborations:

  • Professor Emerita Irma Moilanen, Clinic of Child Psychiatry, University Hospital of Oulu
  • Professor Eeva Leinonen, King’s College London, United Kingdom
  • University of Turin, Italy
  • Clinics of Child Psychiatry, Child Neurology and Phoniatrics of University Hospital of Oulu
  • MA, Leena Mäkinen, University of Oulu

Funding:

  • Finnish Academy, Postdoctoral Researcher’s project