Speakers
Michel Paradis
PhD (McGill U.), PhD (U. de Montréal), CanadaEmeritus Professor, McGill University; founding member of the Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Université du Québec à Montréal and of the Center for Research on Language, Mind and Brain, McGill University. Chair of the Aphasia Committee of the International Association of Logopedics & Phoniatrics (IALP) for four consecutive mandates 1989-2001. Relevant publications: The Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT) (https://www.mcgill.ca/linguistics/research/bat) Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Paradis, M. (2009). Declarative and procedural determinants of second languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Paradis, M., & Libben, G. (2014). The assessment of bilingual aphasia. New York: Psychology Press, Paradis, M. (2021). Afasia en bilingües: características, principios de evaluación, y la importancia de la memoria declarativa y procedimental. In S. Rubio-Bruno & A. Ardila (eds.), Afasia por expertos (pp. 383-417). Buenos Aires: Akadia.
Virve-Anneli Vihman
Associate Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Tartu's Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, EstoniaVirve-Anneli Vihman is Associate Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Tartu's Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics. She has conducted research on mono- and bilingual children's language development, leads a research group on youth language in Estonia and is raising two bilingual children. She is a co-investigator on the project 'Development of a toolkit for the assessment of bilingual children’s language skills' (Principle Investigator, Marika Padrik, funded by the Education and Youth Board in Estonia (2021-2024).
Sean Pert
Chair of the Royal College of SLT, Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Manchester, Consultant SLT for the Indigo Gender Service, UKDr Sean Pert is the Chair of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Sean is also a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Manchester, and Consultant Speech and Language Therapist for the Indigo Gender Service. Sean has almost 30 years clinical experience and led a Service for children and young people before moving to academia in 2014. Sean teaches IPA transcription, Speech Sound Disorders, Bilingualism and Voice and Communication Therapy. Sean has published textbooks and research papers on Speech and Language Disorders in a Bilingual Context and VCT and has been awarded the Sternberg Award for Clinical Innovation an unprecedented three occasions.
Carolina Caggiano
Mother of 4 children, the eldest of whom, Isabella, is an AAC-user, NorwayCarolina is the mother of 4 children, the eldest of whom, Isabella, is an AAC-user. When Isabella was 9 months old, the family moved from Buenos Aires to Norway. We are a multicultural family. Carolina's great involvement in Isabella's AAC sparked an interest that also led to university studies and professional work in the field.
Adele Vaks
PhD student at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, EstoniaAdele Vaks is a PhD student at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics. In her thesis, she looks into the Estonian skills of Estonian-Norwegian bilingual children, investigating the effects of language exposure and cross-linguistic influence on morphosyntax. She is involved in the project 'Development of a toolkit for the assessment of bilingual children’s language skills' (Principle Investigator, Marika Padrik, funded by the Education and Youth Board in Estonia (2021-2024). Photo: Lauri Kulpsoo
Olivia Hadjadj
PhD student at the University of Geneva, SLT, SwitzerlandUniversity of Geneva - Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. After working as a speech and language therapist in France, she is currently a PhD student at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where she works on the dynamic assessment of language abilities (morphosyntactic and narrative skills). She is also a member of the executive committee of the SLPhD network.
Lemmietta G. McNeilly
Ph.D., Chief Staff Officer ASHA, CCC-SLP, FASAE, CAE, FNAPDr. Lemmietta McNeilly serves as the Chief Staff Officer for Speech-Language Pathology at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and is responsible for Speech-Language Pathology Practices, Governmental Affairs and Public Policy, International Programs and Special Interest Groups. She is an ASHA Fellow, a Distinguished Scholar and Fellow of the National Academy of Practice, and a Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives.
Sini Smolander
MA, speech and language therapist, university teacher and PhD candidate in logopedics, FinlandClinical experience in assessing and identifying developmental language disorders in monolingual and multilingual children as a multidisciplinary team member at the Helsinki University Hospital clinic. Experience in working with interpreters and developing assessment in collaboration with them. Researcher in the Helsinki longitudinal SLI study (HelSLI), which investigates Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) at multiple levels of analysis and consists of five subprojects (genetic, EEG, cognitive, psychosocial and bilingual). Especially involved in HelSLI-bilingual, which investigates how bilingual children with DLD differ from their peers at the etiological (genetic and environmental), neural, cognitive, and behavioural levels of analysis, what are the risk and protective factors and how DLD children could be diagnosed more reliably. University teacher at the University of Eastern Finland.
Jóhanna Thelma Einarsdóttir
Professor and a program director at the University of Iceland, in School of Education and School of Health Science, Iceland.Jóhanna Thelma Einarsdóttir is professor and a program director at the University of Iceland, in School of Education and School of Health Science. She has been a Speech and language pathologist since 1987, and specialized in fluency disorders since 1994. Her research has focused on epidemiology of early stuttering measures and treatment of stuttering as well as general language acquisition, measurement of language development, bilingual studies and developmental language disorders.
Eva-Kristina Salameh
SLP and a PhD (medical faculty), SwedenShe has for many years worked clinically with bilingual children with DLD at Skåne University Hospital along with lecturing as a senior lecturer at the SLP-program at Lund University, and also lecturing at the other SLP-programs in Sweden. Her research has mostly been about DLD in bilingual children, especially Swedish-Arabic children, both in preschool and school, aiming at assessment and intervention. Photo: Swedish Television
Abhijeet Patra
PhD, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University, UKAbhijeet Patra is a speech and language therapist and a senior lecturer in speech and language therapy at the Faculty of Health and Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is interested in understanding how different cognitive processes influence language processing in the healthy and communication-disordered population (e.g., bilingual aphasia). He utilizes mixed methods approaches including behavioural and electrophysiological methods.
Riikka Ullakonoja
PhD, qualified teacher of Russian, French and English, FinlandPhD. Riikka Ullakonoja is currently a post-doctoral researcher in a project Broken Finnish': Accent perceptions in societal gatekeeping (funded by the Research Council of Finland) at the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has obtained a title of Docent in Language learning, especially oral proficiency and multilingualism at the University of Turku.
Wiebke Scharff Rethfeldt
Professor of SLT, director of Therapeutic Sciences in SLT program at the Hochschule BremenDr. Wiebke Scharff Rethfeldt is a full Professor of Speech and Language Therapy and director of Therapeutic Sciences in SLT program at the Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences, Germany. She received her professional certificate in Logopedics at the Hannover Medical School and has clinical experience in assessing and identifying developmental language disorders (DLD) in monolingual and multilingual children from diverse cultural backgrounds. She achieved her Masters at Newcastle University and completed her doctorate at Oldenburg University. Her teaching and research interests focus on early clinical assessment of DLD in multilingual children with or without migration or refugee background, and access to SLT services for children from minority and socially disadvantaged backgrounds.
Annick Comblain
Professor of Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Liège, Belgium.Annick Comblain is Professor of Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Liège (Belgium). For some thirty years, her teaching and research have focused on language acquisition and development of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (including genetic syndromes of intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders), and on bilingual development, particularly that of children attending immersion schools in French-speaking Belgium. For some years now, she has been combining the two fields of research and is interested in the bilingual education of children with neurodevelopmental disorders. She is very active in promoting bilingual and multilingual education in Belgium.
Signhild Skogdal
SLT and associate professor at UiT the Arctic university of NorwaySignhild Skogdal is a SLT and associate professor at UiT the Arctic university of Norway, in Tromsø. Here, she leads, teaches and do her research at the SLT master program. Skogdal’s SLT interests concern stuttering, DLD, but first of all AAC. AAC is also the topic in her ph.d., with the title “Participation in school for students who use AAC” (2017). Skogdal has had several presentations at national and international SLT and AAC conferences.
Elin Thordardottir
PhD., SLP – Audiologist, professor at McGill University in Montreal, an adjunct professor at the University of IcelandElin Thordardottir, a certified Speech-Language Pathologist – Audiologist is a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and an adjunct professor at the University of Iceland. She received her clinical and research training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (M.S and Ph.D.). On the faculty of the McGill School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill since 1998, she teaches courses on developmental language disorder (DLD) in monolingual and bilingual children, its nature, underlying causes, assessment and intervention.
Tiia Õun
PhD, Director of School of Education at Tallinn University, EstoniaTiia Õun, PhD, Director of School of Education at Tallinn University. Her research has focused on the quality of education and innovation, mainly at preschool level. Tiia Õun participated in several research groups dealing with teacher professionalism, innovative learning and teaching methods, and the quality of education in the context of education policy. She has worked on the methodology of supporting early language learning and teacher skills to support the early language learning in preschool education.
Reili Argus
PhD, Professor of Estonian Language at Tallinn University, EstoniaThe main field of her research interest is the acquisition of Estonian as a first language. She has studied the acquisition of Estonian morphology, as well as the acquisition of lexico-semantic and pragmatic categories. The secondary field of her research is connected with the acquisition of Estonian as a second language. She has studied the acquisition of Estonian morphology, vocabulary and narration skills of 8-10-years old Russian-speaking children and led a number of projects supporting the professional skills of Estonian teachers working in multilingual classrooms.