Nordic Speech Research Forum: Doctoral researcher Ida-Lotta Myllylä, University of Helsinki

Ida-Lotta Myllylä is a doctoral researcher in phonetics at the University of Helsinki, where she teaches alongside her research. Her current work focuses on speech patterns, multimodal conduct and interactional practices of individuals on the autism spectrum. She investigates pitch-related and temporal prosodic features, how they are accompanied by co-speech gestures, and how they are interpreted and responded to in various conversational settings. She uses methods from phonetics, signal processing and interactional linguistics. At the core of her research is the notion that spoken communication in autism is not inherently deficient, but represents a different, valid communicative mode. Interactional challenges may stem from a mismatch between neurotypical listener expectations and speech patterns associated with autism. A broader aim of her work is to raise awareness of communication in autism and to support more equitable interaction.