We have previously informed that in the frame of the European Social Fund project No. 8.2.2.0/18/I/003 “The perfection of academic staff of Liepaja University in the areas of strategic specialization – speech therapy, preschool education and primary education” from 1st August 2020 Maria Vlassopoulos from Greece has started to work at Liepaja University. LiepU guest professor from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Medicine is not only giving classes to students and doing a research work, but also work with kids with speech disorders.
In this study semester Maria Vlassopoulos is working with study program’s “Speech Therapy” bachelor level students: giving lectures, organizing and evaluating their practical works and also giving consultations in the study course “Different diagnosis in multilingual language disorder” in an amount of 3 ECTS. First classes have been held remotely due to the self isolation after arriving at Liepaja. Students are very satisfied with the professor’s lectures, because in the classes interesting, useful information has been given, also professor has a good sense of humor. During classes students have practically worked – they were creating different information posters addressed to parents to encourage them to teach to their kids two or more foreign languages. About this task M.Vlassopoulos says: “I was delighted by the results: they did a very good job, in a very short amount of time”.
About LiepU students professor says: “Latvian students are smiling so much! I am very pleased with their participation in a class, considering English is not their first language. Although initially shy and perhaps hesitant, I would say that towards the end of the course everyone spoke up to a lesser or greater degree. They asked questions and made comments appropriately, and their feedback was always interesting and thoughtful.”
Professor was born in London, UK, where she went to school and then to university. She started her studies at Sussex University, UK, in Developmental Psychology. Then she went to the USA, where continued studies in Speech Pathology and Audiology, at Hayward University. Finally, she attained PhD at City University in Clinical Communication Studies. She has been living and working in Athens for over thirty years. At the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, where she is a full-time academic: “My duties are divided between teaching, research and clinical work. I teach undergraduate and postgraduate medical students, and also participate in various Master’s degree programmes in speech therapy, psychology, early childhood education etc.”
M.Vlassopoulos research interests are mainly clinically based and directed at early intervention in neurodevelopmental disorders (eg. characteristics and comorbidity, outcomes, service utilization, parental involvement, quality of life, etc.).