Pirkko Rautakoski

• PhD, SLP
• Åbo Akademi University

Purpose. People with acquired neurogenic Communication Disorders (PwCD) experience reduced satisfaction in healthcare environments, possibly relating to communication difficulties. Communication Partner Training might improve communication success. The purpose of the scoping review was to map the literature about educational experiences in teaching...

The interplay of emotional availability (EA) and child temperament in association with early language development is understudied. We explored associations between maternal EA and infant communicative development and possible moderations by child temperament. Participants were 151 mother‐child dyads from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. Path model...

Common health issues have been less examined in studies of early language development, particularly in relation to the child’s sex. Respiratory tract infections, often complicated by acute otitis media, are common in children during the first years of life, when early vocabulary development takes place. The present study, conducted in Finland, aime...

In a changing society where the roles of fathers and mothers in caregiving are becoming more equal, the role of the father in early language development has also changed. We aimed to study associations between paternal factors and early vocabulary development in boys and girls. In a longitudinal cohort study, we examined the growth of expressive vo...

Self‐regulation and language are intertwined abilities, but the nature of their relations in early childhood when both skills are still emerging is insufficiently understood. Our knowledge of the relations between early negative affectivity and preverbal and verbal communicative development is still limited. Further, observed and reported temperame...

We examined the vocabulary growth of lexical categories in 719 children (age 13–24 months) as part of a longitudinal cohort study (the STEPS Study) and found a discrepancy in how these categories were affected depending on the child’s sex. In girls, attending day care at 24 months of age predicted a positive vocabulary growth in the lexical categor...

Introduction Studies have shown that many children with early language difficulties also have delays in social-emotional competencies as well as social-emotional and behavioral problems. It is unclear if these conditions are causally related, if they share a common underlying etiology, or if there are bidirectional effects. Studies investigating th...

This research has highlighted a risk for social-emotional and behavioural (SEB) problems in children with developmental language disorder. Associations with delays in social-emotional competencies and language development have been found in both children with language delays and children with language disorders, but findings on the association betw...

Temperament is important to consider when investigating factors influencing communicative development in infancy. Existing research supporting the assumption that temperament and verbal language development are interrelated covers mainly verbal development in toddlerhood onward, but few studies focus on these relations in infancy. The present study...

Aim: This study examined associations between recurrent respiratory tract infections (RTI) or acute otitis media (AOM) during the first one and two years of life and vocabulary size at 13 and 24 months of age. Methods: We studied 646 children born between January 2008 and April 2010 and followed up from birth to two years of age with daily diary...

The goal of “consequences-focused approaches” is to reduce the impact of aphasia on a person's life and they are based on the social model. The aim of the social model of rehabilitation is to remove the barriers for participation and prevent the social isolation people with aphasia often experience. The social model emphasizes the role of the commu...

Background: Communication difficulties in aphasia have a big effect on communicative activity and social participation. Contacts with other people than family become more infrequent because of problems in communicating. Rehabilitation should make a real difference in being able to communicate and in the life of people with aphasia. Aims: The aim of...

Background: Severe aphasia is a chronic condition and can have a big effect on how people with severe aphasia (PWSA) succeed in their communication. The communication partner's support for the person with aphasia has been shown to be essential in achieving successful communication. However, interventions combining training both the partner and the...

The STEPS Study aims to search for the precursors and causes of problems in child health and well-being by using a multidisciplinary approach. The cohort consists of all mothers (Finnish or Swedish speaking) who had live deliveries in the Hospital District of Southwest Finland from January 2008 to April 2010 and their children (n = 9811 mothers, n...

Unlabelled: The present study explored the prevalence of self-reported stuttering in a Finnish twin population and examined the extent to which the variance in liability to stuttering was attributable to genetic and environmental effects. We analyzed data of 1728 Finnish twins, born between 1961 and 1989. The participants were asked to complete a...

Background: The study of novel word learning in aphasia can shed light on the functionality of patients' learning mechanisms and potentially help in treatment planning. Previous studies have indicated that persons with aphasia are able to learn some new vocabulary. However, these learning outcomes appear short-lived and evidence for the ability to...

Background: ICF dimensions Activity and Participation could be used to describe or assess functional communication. The new definition of functional communication contains all the available means of communication, total communication, as well as the support from environmental factors, for example communication partners. However, there are not many...

Background: Collaboration between people with aphasia and their communication partners is needed to achieve success in communication. Some of the partners change their own behaviour spontaneously and start to use different strategies to ensure that conversations are successful, but many require training to do so.Aims: The aim of the present study w...

Background: Novel word learning of persons with aphasia is little studied, even though a better understanding of learning processes would inform development of effective treatment strategies. Recent evidence suggests some remaining verbal learning capacity in persons with aphasia. Long-term maintenance of newly learned active vocabulary has not bee...

Background: Many people with severe or moderate aphasia begin to use nonverbal methods of communication spontaneously, but some need special training to do so. Use of total communication, including different nonverbal techniques, is often recommended to enable communication and participation in social interaction. Emphasis has also been placed on t...

Why involve clients?Involving clients in speech and language therapySpecific methods and measures that include client viewsObtaining the views of clients with communication disordersReflections on incorporating client views into SLT practiceReferences

Background: According to the philosophy of the social model of disability, clients are the best estimators of their own life situation. Eliciting the experiences of people with severe aphasia is demanding because of their language and possible other cognitive problems. They are therefore usually excluded from the studies. However, there is evidence...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an intervention in progress on the adaptation courses of Stroke and Dysphasia Federation. These so called communication courses are arranged for people with severe aphasia and their significant others. The courses aim to activating the aphasics to use different kinds of augmentative and alternative communic...