
Sari Kunnari
PhD
Biography
I have conducted research on typical speech and language acquisition for 25 years, with the aim of verifying language-specific aspects through cross-linguistic comparisons. Besides typical acquisition, my research has comprised two main clinical groups, namely children with specific language impairment and children with hearing impairment. I have also been a member of the management committee of three international researcher networks (COST actions) and a member of the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech.
Research interests
- phonology, vocabulary, morphosyntax, narrative
- speech and language disorders
Selected projects
- 2017–2021, Academy of Finland, Speech perception and spoken language outcomes of early cochlear implantation and hearing aid rehabilitation at ages 4 to 6
- 2010–2013, Academy of Finland, Speech perception and speech and language development in children with unilateral and/or bilateral cochlear implant(s)
- 2007–2010, Academy of Finland, Stages in the phonological development of children acquiring Finnish
- 2005–2009, NIH, USA, Morphological deficits in specific language impairment
- 2001–2003, Academy of Finland, Early speech development and maternal speech to infants
Databases
Selected publications
- Välimaa, Taina; Kunnari, Sari; Laukkanen-Nevala, Päivi; Lonka, Eila; the National Clinical Research Team (2018) Early vocabulary development in children with bilateral cochlear implants. - International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 53 (1), 3-15 . Original: [Original]
- Haman, Ewa; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Hansen, Pernille; Gram Simonsen, Hanne; Chiat, Shula; Bjekić, Jovana; Blažienė, Agne; Chyl, Katarzyna; Dabašinskienė, Ineta; Engel de Abreu, Pascale; Gagarina, Natalia; Gavarró, Anna; Håkansson, Gisela; Harel, Efrat; Holm, Elisabeth; Kapalková, Svetlana; Kunnari, Sari; Levorato, Chiara; Lindgren, Josefin; Mieszkowska, Karolina (2017) Noun and verb knowledge in monolingual preschool children across 17 languages : Data from Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). - Clinical linguistics & phonetics 31 (11-12), 818-843 . Original: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2017.1308553. Self-archived: [Original] [Self-archived]
- McLeod, Sharynne; Verdon, Sarah; The international expert panel on multilingual children's speech (2017) Tutorial : Speech assessment for multilingual children who do not speak the same language(s) as the speech-language pathologist. - American journal of speech-language pathology 26 (3), 691-708 . Original: https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_AJSLP-15-0161. Self-archived: [Original] [Self-archived]
- Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Haman, Ewa; de Lopez, Kristine Jensen; Smoczynska, Magdalena; Yatsushiro, Kazuko; Szczerbinski, Marcin; van Hout, Angeliek; Dabasinskiene, Ineta; Gavarro, Anna; Hobbs, Erin; Kamandulyte-Merfeldiene, Laura; Katsos, Napoleon; Kunnari, Sari; Nitsiou, Chrisa; Sundahl Olsen, Lone; Parramon, Xavier; Sauerland, Uli; Torn-Leesik, Reeli; van der Lely, Heather (2016) A large-scale cross-linguistic investigation of the acquisition of passive. - Language Acquisition 23 (1), 27-56 . [Original]
- Kunnari, Sari; Välimaa, Taina; Laukkanen-Nevala, Päivi (2016) Macrostructure in the narratives of monolingual Finnish and bilingual Finnish-Swedish children. - Applied Psycholinguistics 37 (1; SI), 123-144 . [Original]
- Katsos, Napoleon; Cummins, Chris; Ezeizabarrena, Maria-Jose; Gavarro, Anna; Kraljevic, Jelena Kuvac; Hrzica, Gordana; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Skordi, Athina; de Lopez, Kristine Jensen; Sundahl, Lone; van Hout, Angeliek; Hollebrandse, Bart; Overweg, Jessica; Faber, Myrthe; van Koert, Margreet; Smith, Nafsika; Vija, Maigi; Zupping, Sirli; Kunnari, Sari; Morisseau, Tiffany (2016) Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers. - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113 (33), 9244-9249 . [Original]
- Kunnari, Sari; Nieminen, Lea; Torvelainen, Päivi (2016) FIN-LARSP : Morphosyntactic profiling of Finnish children. Profiling Grammar : More Languages of LARSP. Fletcher, Paul; Ball, Martin J.; Crystal, David. - Ei sarjaa/No series 15. Bristol. 64-79
- Luniewska, Magdalena; Haman, Ewa; Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Etenkowski, Bartlomiej; Southwood, Frenette; Andelkovic, Darinka; Blom, Elma; Boerma, Tessel; Chiat, Shula; de Abreu, Pascale Engel; Gagarina, Natalia; Gavarro, Anna; Hakansson, Gisela; Hickey, Tina; de Lopez, Kristine Jensen; Marinis, Theodoros; Popovic, Masa; Thordardottir, Elin; Blaziene, Agne; Sanchenz, Myriam Cantu (2016) Ratings of age of acquisition of 299 words across 25 languages: Is there a cross-linguistic order of words?. - Behavior research methods 48 (3), 1154-1177 . [Original]
- Sauerland, Uli; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Andelkovic, Darinka; Argus, Reili; Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Arosio, Fabrizio; Avram, Larisa; Costa, Joao; Dabasinskiene, Ineta; de Lopez, Kristine; Gatt, Daniela; Grech, Helen; Haman, Ewa; van Hout, Angeliek; Hrzica, Gordana; Kainhofer, Judith; Kamandulyte-Merfeldiene, Laura; Kunnari, Sari; Kovacevic, Melita; Kraljevic, Jelena Kuvac; Lipows (2016) How do 5-year-olds understand questions? Differences in languages across Europe. - First Language 36 (3), 169-202
- Gagarina, Natalia; Klop, Daleen; Kunnari, Sari; Tantele, Koula; Välimaa, Taina; Balčiūnienė, Ingrida; Walters, Joel (2015) Assessment of narrative abilities in bilingual children. Assessing multilingual children : disentangling bilingualism from language impairment. Armon-Lotem, Sharon; de Jong, Jan; Meir , Natalia. - Communication Disorders Across Languages 13. Bristol. 243-276
- Mäkinen, Leena; Loukusa, Soile; Leinonen, Eeva; Moilanen, Irma; Ebeling, Hanna; Kunnari, Sari (2014) Characteristics of narrative language in autism spectrum disorder : Evidence from the Finnish. - Research in autism spectrum disorders 8 (8), 987-996 . [Original]
- Kunnari, Sari; Savinainen-Makkonen, Tuula; Leonard, Laurence B; Mäkinen, Leena; Tolonen, Anna-Kaisa (2014) The use of negative inflections by Finnish-speaking children with and without specific language impairment. - Clinical linguistics & phonetics 28 (9), 697-708 . [Original]
- Leonard, Laurence B; Kunnari, Sari; Savinainen-Makkonen, Tuula; Tolonen, Anna-Kaisa; Mäkinen, Leena; Luotonen, Mirja; Leinonen, Eeva (2014) Noun case suffix use by children with specific language impairment: an examination of Finnish. - Applied Psycholinguistics 35 (4), 833-854
- Mäkinen, Leena; Loukusa, Soile; Laukkanen, Päivi; Leinonen, Eeva; Kunnari, Sari (2014) Linguistic and pragmatic aspects of narration in Finnish typically developing children and children with specific language impairment. - Clinical linguistics & phonetics 28 (6), 413-427
- Mäkinen, Leena; Loukusa, Soile; Nieminen, Lea; Leinonen, Eeva; Kunnari ,Sari (2014) The development of narrative productivity, syntactic complexity, referential cohesion and event content in four- to eight-year-old Finnish children. - First Language 34 (1), 24-42
- Nakai, Satsuki; Kunnari, Sari. (2014) On the perceived quantity of young children’s speech segments. Consonant gemination in first and second language acquisition. Costamagna, Lidia; Celata, Chiara.. Pisa. 119-144
- McLeod, Sharynne; Verdon, Sarah; Bowen, Caroline; the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech (2013) International aspirations for speech-language pathologists’ practice with multilingual children with speech sound disorder: development of a position paper. - Journal of Communication Disorders 46 (4), 375-387
- Kunnari, Sari; Yliherva, Anneli; Paavola, Leena; Peltoniemi, Outi (2012) Expressive language skills in Finnish two-year-old extremely- and very-low-birth-weight preterm children. - Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica 64 (1), 5-11 . [Original]
- Gagarina, Natalia; Klop, Daleen; Kunnari, Sari; Tantele, Koula; Välimaa, Taina; Balciuniene, Ingrida; Bohnacker; Ute; Walters, Joel (2012) Part I. MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. - ZAS Papers in Linguistics 56, 1-139 . [Original]
- Nakai, Satsuki; Turk, Alice; Suomi, Kari; Granlund, Sonia; Ylitalo, Riikka; Kunnari, Sari (2012) Quantity constraints on the temporal implementation of phrasal prosody in Northern Finnish. - Journal of Phonetics 40 (6), 796-807
- Kunnari, Sari; Saaristo-Helin, Katri; Savinainen-Makkonen, Tuula (2012) Phonological mean length of utterance in specific language impairment: a multi-case study of children acquiring Finnish. - Clinical linguistics & phonetics 26 (5), 428444
- Kunnari, Sari; Savinainen-Makkonen, Tuula; Leonard, Laurence B; Mäkinen, Leena;Tolonen, Anna-Kaisa; Luotonen, Mirja; Leinonen, Eeva (2011) Children with specific language impairment in Finnish: The use of tense and agreement inflections. - Journal of Child Language 38, 9991027
- Saaristo-Helin, Katri; Kunnari, Sari; Savinainen-Makkonen, Tuula (2011) Phonological development in children learning Finnish: A review. - First Language 31, 342363
- DePaolis, R.; Vihman, M. M. & Kunnari, Sari (2008) Prosody in production at the onset of word use. A cross-linguistic study. - Journal of Phonetics 36, 406-422
- Kunnari, Sari & Savinainen-Makkonen, Tuula (2007) Finnish speech acquisition. The International Guide to Speech Acquisition. Ed. by S. McLeod, Thomson Delmar Learning. 351-363
- Saaristo-Helin, K.; Savinainen-Makkonen, T. & Kunnari, Sari (2006) Phonological Mean Length of Utterance: methodological challenges from a crosslinguistic perspective. - Journal of Child Language 33, 179-190
- Paavola, Leila; Kemppinen, K.; Kunnari, Sari; Kumpulainen, K.; Moilanen, Irma & Ebeling, Hanna (2006) Characteristics of mother-infant communicative interaction: relations to the ratings of maternal sensitivity and infant co-operation. - Journal of Early Childhood Research 4 (3), 203-222
- Vihman, M. M. & Kunnari, Sari (2006) Sources of phonological knowledge: a cross-linguistic perspective. - Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes (35), 133-164
- Paavola, Leila; Kunnari, Sari & Moilanen, Irma (2005) Maternal responsiveness and infant intentional communication: implications for the early communicative and linguistic development. - Child: Care, health & development 31 (6), 727-735
- Kunnari, Sari (2003) Consonant inventories: a longitudinal study of Finnish-speaking children. - Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders 1 (2), 124-131
- Kunnari, Sari (2002) Word length in syllables: evidence from early word production in Finnish. - First Language 22 (65), 119-135
- Kunnari, Sari; Nakai, S. & Vihman, M. M. (2001) Cross-linguistic evidence for the acquisition of geminates. - Psychology of Language and Communication 5 (2), 13-24
Thesis supervisions
Doctoral theses (completed)
Leila Paavola (2006). Maternal sensitive responsiveness, characteristics and relations to child early communicative and linguistic development
Katri Saaristo-Helin (2011). Phonological mean length of utterances as an indicator of typical and impaired phonological development in children acquiring Finnish
Leena Mäkinen (2014). Narrative language in typically developing children, children with specific language impairment and children with autism spectrum disorder
Hanna Elo (2016). Acquiring language as a twin: Twin children’s early health, social environment and emerging language skills
Doctoral theses (ongoing)
Elisa Heikkinen
Anna-Leena Martikainen
Anna-Kaisa Tolonen
Krista Wallenius
Sini Smolander
Katariina Rantalainen
Anna-Stina Sevon
Bushra Awad