Ongoing Projects

Dyslexia from 5 to 15

Follow-up of the five-year-old children who were included in the Norwegian Longitudinal Dyslexia Project by a risk index questionnaire (RI-5) filled up by parents and teachers. After ten years of schooling information on core subjects (language and literacy skills in L1 (Norwegian) and L2 (English), and mathematics), and showed that the dyslexia risk factors identified at age 5 by the RI-5 and language impairment identified by CCC-2 at age 11 predicted school marks at age 15. Some more analyses are in progress. 

Head of Project: Professor em. Turid Helland, Department of Medical and Biological Psychology, University of Bergen

Second language (L2) learning in dyslexia and DLD from different angles. 

English as L2. During the last 20 years, 6th graders have regularly been tested with “The English 2 Dyslexia Test”. During this period, three official curriculums were implemented, with more teaching hours in this subject. All studies show significantly lower scores in dyslexia compared to controls, albeit with a tendency to increase verbal skills. Up-to-date analyses are in progress.

Norwegian as L2 in 3rd graders with another first language. The focus is on how to disentangle typical literacy development from dyslexia in this group of children.

Learning English as a second language (L2) in 1st grade parallel with emerging literacy learning in children with Norwegian as their L1 is focused on teacher interviews.    

Head of Project:

Professor em. Turid Helland, Department of Medical and Biological Psychology, University of Bergen

Trends in dyslexia research and clinical work during the last centuries. 

This project contains papers, book chapters and presentations on changing theories, definitions, and principles of intervention. 

Head of Project: Professor em. Turid Helland, Department of Medical and Biological Psychology, University of Bergen

Cleft palate, DLD and dyslexia.

In cooperation with Statped a group of 5-year-old children were screened with questionnaires of language development (CCC-2) and risk of developmental dyslexia (RI-5) filled out by parents and kindergarten teachers. A follow-up study six years later is in progress.

Heads of Project: Professor em Turid Helland and professor Wenche Helland, Department of Medical and Biological Psychology, University of Bergen

The Pragma project.

The project aims to investigate pragmatic language development and risk of developmental dyslexia in children aged 5 to 7 years. Wenche A. Helland and Frøydis Morken are part of the project group together with Turid Helland.

SpedAims kohort

Frøydis Morken is a member of SpedAims kohort (https://www.uv.uio.no/spedaims/vi-forsker-pa/spedaims-kohort/), a longitudinal multi-center study investigating language, literacy, and mathematics skills in children from the age of four. The study is headed by the University of Oslo, and also includes the University of Stavanger, the University of Agder, and Nord University.

Adult DLD

This project aims to investigate developmental language disorder (DLD) in adults and develop tools for identification and assessment of adult DLD in Norwegian. Associated researchers are Frøydis Morken, Wenche Andersen Helland, and Lise Øen Jones.

Learning, motivation, and education among female prisoners in Norway and Belgium

Wenche A. Helland and Frøydis Morken are part of the project group together with Lise Øen Jones and a research group from Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Belgium. In this project we focus especially on female prisoners, who are a particularly vulnerable population. We investigate oral and written language abilities, motivation and barriers for participation in prison education, and related factors such as sleep and aspects of mental health.

Acting together

The project aims to identify and describe communication strategies that promote or hinder participation in typical and atypical interactions, analyzed with conversation analysis and neuroimaging, fNIRS, an instrument allowing to examine cortical brain activations of freely moving and freely acting subjects in a natural environment.

The project is headed by the University of Tromsø, and also includes Nord University, the University of Bergen and NTNU. Wenche A Helland is a member of the project group.
 

Camouflaging in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

This project explores camouflaging behaviours in individuals diagnosed with ADHD. Camouflaging refers to conscious or unconscious strategies that minimize people’s neurodivergent characteristics, via masking and compensation.

Camouflaging has long been the topic of study in the context of autism and has shown to be related to delayed diagnosis and poor mental health. Delayed diagnosis and mental health issues are relevant to ADHD as well and camouflaging might be one contributing factor. The aim of this project is to explore the phenomenon of camouflaging in ADHD through a qualitative approach.

The project is headed by associate professor Tamara Kalandadze, Østfold University College. Wenche A. Helland is member of the project team.