Cecilia Nakeva Von Mentzer

About Cecilia Nakeva Von Mentzer

About Cecilia Nakeva Von Mentzer

Cecilia Nakeva von Mentzer has been a senior lecturer in hearing science at Örebro University since April 2019. She has a speech language pathology (SLP) degree from Karolinska Institutet (1991) and a doctorate in disability research at Linköping University (2014). Cecilia previously worked as university lecturer and postdoc at the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University.

Research

Cecilia Nakeva von Mentzer's research mainly concerns the assessment and treatment of speech difficulties, language disorders and reading difficulties in children who are deaf and hard of hearing. This involves the development of assessment methods for language and speech perception, as well as the development and evaluation of methods to promote children's speaking, language and reading skills. More recently, research also covers social aspects of communicative impairments. The research often takes place in collaboration with other professions such as psychologists, audiologists, engineers and special educators.

Cecilia is responsible for two research projects: Communicative activity and participation for children with speech and language impairment (CAD) and Language, communication and psychological well-being in young adults with hearing loss: a long-term follow-up. She is also part of a project about the importance of the physical environment for conversations with children at the social services together with researchers in social work and occupational therapy.

CAD

The purpose of the research project is to shed light on the experiences of the child, the guardian and the educator on whether and how speech and language impairment affects social interaction and sense of participation. The goal is to define approaches that create the best possible conditions for the child in two important environments, the home and the (school). Aspects of the study were discussed at an ORU Talks in autumn 2021 and have been presented at seminars in social work and SLP at Örebro and Stockholm universities as well as for Skåne SLP clinic in 2023 and 2024. 

Language, communication and psychological well-being in young adults with hearing loss

The overall aim of the project is to investigate how young adulthood is experienced by young people with hearing loss from a language and communication perspective and how the connections are with psychological well-being. In the project, we follow up a group of children who use cochlear implants (CI) or hearing aids (HA) a little over ten years after they participated in research projects on reading. The goal is to increase knowledge about young adults with hearing loss from a longer life perspective. One part of the study on listening skills in young adults has been presented at the Nordic conference in Speech Language Pathology in November 2024.

Cecilia Nakeva von Mentzer is part of the research environment Special Education, Development and Learning and is research group leader for Speak up.

Teaching

Pedagogical approach

Cecilia's pedagogical approach is based on three key words: curiosity, knowledge-based judgment and relationship. The approach is based on the experiences she made when she worked as a pediatric SLP in the clinic from 1991-2009 and had close contact with the children and their important adults. Several of the educational development projects she accomplished in the clinic, as well as her therapeutic schooling, have thus in many ways set the tone for how she works as a higher education teacher.

Cecilia meets students at all levels of education; those who are new to higher education and those at master's and doctoral level. The program students she teaches are in audiology, occupational therapy, nursing and special education. The breadth of the program students means that she needs to create an image of the students' daily study life and future professional situation in an active way. 

A special aspect of Cecilia's teaching role at Örebro University is her professional background as SLP, which requires special preparation to make this discipline (medicine, linguistics and psychology) visible in various teaching sessions. To enable this, she conducts a continuous dialogue with specialized SLPs in various areas, such as alternative and supplementary communication (AKK), voice and aphasia.

Cecilia's teaching portfolio ranges from practical exercises in body awareness and voice, lectures, laboratories and poster work in acoustic phonetics and speech perception, children's language, cognition, hearing and reading, and quantitative research methods to name a few examples.

Cecilia Nakeva von Mentzer teaches at undergraduate level on the Audiology Programme, the Occupational Therapy program and the Nursing Programme, as well as on the Master's program in occupational therapy/hearing science and Special Education. She supervises essays at basic and advanced level. In February 2024, Petter Kallioinen completed his dissertation where she was assistant supervisor.