Anne Puolakanaho

• PhD (Psychology)
• Senior Researcher at University of Jyväskylä

Koululaisten mielenterveyden ja oppimisen edistämiseksi, häiriöiden ehkäisemiseksi ja hoitamiseksi tarvitaan tänä päivänä laaja-alaisesti erilaisiin oireisiin tehoavia ja vaikuttavia menetelmiä. Menetelmien tulisi edistää psykologista hyvinvointia ja muutosten toteutumista käytännön elämässä. Menetelmien tulisi olla joustavia, helposti saatavilla j...

Introduction Relatively little is known about individual differences in adolescent psychological flexibility and its associations with symptoms of stress and depression. This study examined different profiles of adolescent stress and depressive symptoms and their associations with developing psychological flexibility before the critical educational...

Background: Early appearing temperamental differences and the psychological flexibility skills of individuals are proposed factors influencing stress and depression among adolescents. We test the theoretical assumption that temperament may form a basis for facing the outer world, while the development of psychological flexibility being another such...

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which initial levels and changes in ninth-grade adolescents’ (n = 243) psychological well-being were associated with their school engagement after the transition to upper secondary education. In addition, we investigated whether a brief guided online acceptance and commitment...

Background Although some adolescents managed to cope well with the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the well-being of many was adversely affected due to school closures, distance education, restrictions on gathering with friends, and limited access to mental health services. Many adolescents reported increased anxiety and depression...

Objective: This study investigated the roles of adherence and usage activity in adolescents' (n = 161) gains during a 5-week web intervention program based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Method: Program adherence was calculated as adherence percentage in relation to intended usage, whereas completion percentage, usage time, and usag...

While many children and adolescents experience psychological problems with up to 20 percent estimated to develop a mental health problem, only few receive treatment. Online interventions can help respond to the need of support among young people without requiring considerable resources. However, relatively few studies have examined the efficacy of...

Understanding adolescent usage activity and experiences in web-based psychological intervention programs helps in developing universal programs that can be adopted for promotion of adolescent well-being and prevention of mental health problems. This study examined the usage activity, perceived usefulness (i.e., learning of mindfulness, acceptance a...

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) programs have rarely been used as tools for promoting adolescents' career preparation. This randomized controlled trial examined the possibility to promote the career preparation of Finnish ninth-grade adolescents (n = 249, 49% females) with a web-based five-week ACT-based online intervention program. Partici...

Purpose Mental health problems affect 10-20% of adolescents worldwide. Prevention and early interventions for promoting adolescent mental health are therefore warranted. The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the effects of a 5-week web-intervention (Youth COMPASS) based on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on...

Objectives While interventions using mindfulness have been effective in treating burnout, the mechanisms of change need more research. This study investigated which of five mindfulness facets (observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reacting) mediated the intervention effects on three burnout dimensions (exhaustion, cynic...

A novel eight-week program based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles was created to alleviate burnout-related ill-being and to enhance well-being. This randomized controlled trial investigated the effectiveness of the program and explored whether changes in psychological flexibility mediated the results of the intervention. The pr...

This study investigated whether beneficial intervention effects on burnout and mindfulness skills diffuse and facilitate the long-term development of different levels of subjective well-being: experiential (perceived stress), eudaimonic (psychological and social well-being), and evaluative (life satisfaction). Participants were Finnish employees wi...

Acceptance and commitment therapy programs have rarely been used as preventive tools for alleviating stress and enhancing coping skills among adolescents. This randomized controlled trial examined the efficacy of a novel Finnish web- and mobile-delivered five-week intervention program called Youth COMPASS among a general sample of ninth-grade adole...

The aim of this paper was to investigate the associations between mindfulness and acceptance (MAA) skills and burnout-related ill-being at work (ILLB) after eliminating the impact of worksite (WS) and general well-being in life (WELLB) factors. The results were derived from data on employees (n = 168) of varying professional backgrounds, who experi...

Objective: This study examined the outcomes of a brief Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention for depression delivered by novice therapists. Method: Participants (N = 115) were randomized either to the brief (six sessions) ACT or to a waitlist control condition (WLC). Outcomes were assessed with diagnoses of depressive episodes (ICD-1...

This study investigated individual differences in changes in burnout symptoms during a brief mindfulness-, acceptance-, and value-based intervention. It also studied whether the changes in burnout were simultaneous with the changes in mindfulness skills. The role of practices and learning experiences in these changes were investigated. The particip...

The aim of this pilot study was to explore the predictive accuracy of computer-based assessment tasks (embedded within the GraphoLearn digital learning game platform) in identifying slow and normal readers. The results were compared to those obtained from the traditional paper-and-pencil tasks currently used to assess school readiness in Finland. T...

Full-text freely available in http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-6562-4

In Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia, we have investigated neurocognitive processes related to phonology and other risk factors of later reading problems. Here we review studies in which we have investigated whether dyslexic children with familial risk background would show atypical auditory/speech processing at birth, at six months and late...

The role played by an auditory-processing deficit in dyslexia has been debated for several decades. In a longitudinal study using brain event-related potentials (ERPs) we investigated 1) whether dyslexic children with familial risk background would show atypical pitch processing from birth and 2) how these newborn ERPs later relate to these same ch...

This study surveyed and compared support systems for poor readers in six member states of the European Union (EU). The goal was to identify features of effective support systems. A large-scale questionnaire survey was conducted among mainstream teachers (n = 4,210) and remedial teachers (n = 2,395). Results indicate that the six support systems dif...

The authors examined second grade reading accuracy and fluency and their associations via letter knowledge to phonological and language predictors assessed at 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5 years in children in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. Structural equation modeling showed that a developmentally highly stable factor (early phonological and la...

Analyses from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia project show that the key childhood predictors (phonological awareness, short-term memory, rapid naming, expressive vocabulary, pseudoword repetition, and letter naming) of dyslexia differentiate the group with reading disability (n = 46) and the group without reading problems (n = 152) at...

The development of phonological awareness (PA) before school age was modeled in association with the development of vocabulary and letter knowledge, home literacy environment (HLE), children's reading interest, and beginning reading skill in children with and without familial risk of dyslexia. A total of 186 children were followed from birth to the...

Emerging phonological awareness was compared in two groups of 3.5-year-old children belonging to the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD): children with familial risk of dyslexia (at-risk group n = 98) and children without such risk (control group n = 91). Four computer animated tasks were used: Word-level and Syllable-level Segment Ident...

Four computer-animated tasks were created to analyze the underlying structure of emerging phonological awareness at 3.5 years of age and to explore the factors that influence children's (N = 91) performance on the tasks. Our findings indicated that already at this young age, children are able to master tasks demanding identification, blending, and...

Comparisons of the developmental pathways of the first 5 years of life for children with (N = 107) and without (N = 93) familial risk for dyslexia observed in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal study of Dyslexia are reviewed. The earliest differences between groups were found at the ages of a few days and at 6 months in brain event-related potential respon...