Elina Mainela-Arnold
Ph.D.
memaar@utu.fi +358 29 450 3016 +358 50 463 5719 Assistentinkatu 7 Turku Office: 328 ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0142-6412 |
Speech and language development, developmental language disorder/specific language impairment, bilingualism, language and cognition
I
completed my Master’s degree in speech-language pathology at the University of
Helsinki and my Ph.D. degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in
communicative disorders and psychology. After my defense, I held assistant
professor positions at Penn State University and at the University of Toronto.
I am currently a professor and the head of department of psychology and speech-language pathology at the
University of Turku.
Individual differences in language learning inform us about the neurocognitive mechanisms involved in language acquisition. A fundamental question in language acquisition asks if language acquisition utilizes a general purpose learning mechanism or if dedicated cognitive mechanisms exclusive to language learning are needed. My research focuses on identifying general purpose cognitive (i.e. domain general) mechanisms underlying individual differences in the ability for language learning. My particular focus has been comparisons between children with typical language development (TD) and children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Children with DLD exhibit difficulties in the development of spoken language without any frank disability that would explain their difficulties. Although the cause or causes of DLD are unknown, heritability estimates suggest genetic contributions. While some candidate genes have been identified, the progress has been erratic, perhaps because diagnostic categories like DLD are likely to be heterogeneous with different genetic and environmental underlying factors contributing to the heterogeneity. Identifying measures of underlying cognitive markers together with environmental risk factors is likely to allow a more accurate examination of neural developmental processes and genes contributing to this disorder as well as individual differences in language development. My research has directly provided evidence for several domain general cognitive markers that are related to individual differences in language development.
In addition to informing theories of language development and DLD, my research makes a difference in the society. The scientific findings of our studies help better identify language learning impairments in children. Large scale studies have indicated that even though childhood language impairments have significant negative academic, social, employment and mental health consequences, DLD often remains undiagnosed and untreated. I have been part of an interdisciplinary international CATALISE (Criteria and Terminology Applied to Language Impairments: Synthesizing the Evidence) consensus panel, which recently came out with recommendations for new evidence-based terminology and diagnostic criteria for identifying childhood language impairments (Bishop et al. 2016; 2017). The nonverbal cognitive and motor deficits present in DLD my research has provided evidence for were recognized as a part of the language disorder profile and the new term developmental language disorder was recommended. Some of these recommendations were immediately reflected on the new ICD 11 (International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision).
I
currently teach in the following speech-language pathology and psychology
courses at the University of Turku: Language across the lifespan, Evidence
based practice in speech-language pathology, Bilingualism, Assessment in
developmental disorders, Children’s neuropsychological- and communicative
disorders, Cognitive processes, Psychology of Language. I also mentor Bachelors,
Master’s and Doctoral thesis work.
- Gesture-speech integration in children with specific language impairment (2014)
- International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Effects of children's working memory capacity and processing speed on their sentence imitation performance (2013)
- International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Phonological and lexical effects in verbal recall by children with specific language impairments (2013)
- International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Investigating sentence processing and language segmentation in explaining children's performance on a sentence-span task (2012)
- International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Knowledge of Mathematical Equivalence in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Insights From Gesture and Speech (2011)
- Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Beyond Capacity Limitations II: Effects of Lexical Processes on Word Recall in Verbal Working Memory Tasks in Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment (2010)
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Explaining Lexical-Semantic Deficits in Specific Language Impairment: The Role of Phonological Similarity, Phonological Working Memory, and Lexical Competition (2010)
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Gesture-speech integration in narrative Are children less redundant than adults? (2009)
- Gesture
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Lexical representations in children with SLI: Evidence from a frequency-manipulated gating task (2008)
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Children with specific language impairments perceive speech most categorically when tokens are natural and meaningful (2007)
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Understanding conservation delays in children with specific language impairment: Task representations revealed in speech and gesture (2006)
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1)) - Beyond capacity limitations: Determinants of word recall performance on verbal working memory span tasks in children with SLI (2005)
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
(Refereed journal article or data article (A1))