I’m Professor of psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä (JYU), Finland, and the director of the Centre of Excellence for Learning Dynamics and Intervention Research (InterLearn CoE) at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, JYU.
Inline with InterLearn CoE themes, the links between children's learning and mental health, and the factors that explain the effectiveness of learning support interventions, I aim to understand why some children develop difficulties in early life and school and why some children, despite some risk factors manage to avoid major problems.
Leppänen's current research focuses on neurodevelopmental disorders, including reading, math, attention, language difficulties, foreign language learning, digital learning, and their neurocognitive, socio-emotional and environmental risk and protective factors as well as training and intervention effects. Leppänen and his research group uses survey, behavioral, eye-tracking and brain research methods (EEG, MEG, and combined MEG/EEG-eye-tracking methods).
He has recently been PI/JYU PI of several European projects, including H2020 doctoral training network Neo-PRISM-C ETN (2019-2023), ChildBrain and PredictAble European Training Networks (2015-2019), and Academy of Finland -projects, most recently InterLearn CoE (2022-2029), CoPSOI-project on collaborative and online learning (2018-2022, consortium PI), and iFuCo (2016-2018) on enhancing learning and teaching of online inquiry, and eSeek on internet reading and learning difficulties (2014-2017).
