Taina Välimaa

I am a Professor in Speeh and Language Pathology at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and a certified SLT. I am also an Affiliated Professor in Speech and Language Pathology (Logopedics) at the Research Unit of Logopedics at the University of Oulu. My research interests are in the field of speech perception, auditory speech processing, and speech, language, communication, literacy and psychosocial wellbeing and school-related burnout in children, adolescents and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing and who use either hearing aids or cochlear implants. I am also interested in bilingual language acquisition and the neural correlates of speech and language processing. Previously, I have been working in a COST Action IS0804 and as a Visiting Scholar at Purdue University, Indiana, USA in 2013. In addition, I am actively developing assessment methods for auditory speech perception and speech and language. My scientific collaboration is highly multidisciplinary (logopedics/speech and language therapy, clinical medicine, ear-nose-throat diseases, audiology, phoniatrics, phonetics, psychology, technology). At the moment I am a Principal Investigator of a national consortium project financed by the Research Council of Finland (2026-2030) together with Professor Sari Kunnari at RU of Logopedics at the University of Oulu.