Kaisa Launonen, PhD, is a speech and language therapist by her education. In her clinical work she has worked with people with intellectual disabilities and their families and other environments. At present, she works at the University of Helsinki as a university lecturer and the director of the BA and MA programme in logopedics.
Her main research interests are early intervention, quality of life and intervention of people with the most severe communication disabilities, and augmentative and alternative communication, manual signing and other unaided communication forms, in particular.
She has recently edited, together with Dr Nicola Grove, an international book, “Manual sign acquisition in children with developmental disabilities” (2019). She is the Finnish principal investigator in the international multi-site research project, Becoming an Aided Communicator (BAC).
Kirsi Neuvonen, MA is a speech and language therapist with a long clinical experience in pediatric rehabilitation. The focus of her PhD study is to investigate meaning-negotiation strategies in co-constructed conversations using aided communication. Kirsi Neuvonen´s study is part of the international multi-site research project Becoming an Aided Communicator (BAC).
Irina Savolainen, PhD, has long clinical experience in working as a speech and language therapist in the field of augmentative and alternative communication. At present, she works at the University of Helsinki as a university lecturer.
The focus of her PhD study was on participants' practices to further and co-construct the conversations that use technical and non-technical communication aids. Theoretical and methodological background of the study lies on inductive Conversation analysis.