Ulrika Schachinger Lorentzon

About Ulrika Schachinger Lorentzon

Ulrika is a specialist speech therapist at Queen Silvia's Children's Hospital. She has many years of clinical experience in meeting children with language difficulties at an early age and their families. Ulrika divides her clinical time between the Paediatric Speech and Language Pathology Clinic and the Neuropsychiatric Clinic for Children and Adolescents. The role of a speech therapist involves differentiating language disorders from other developmental neurological deviations. As a specialist, Ulrika has led the mission of evidence-based speech therapy treatment methods at the speech therapy clinic.

Research interests

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a relatively unknown disability. Ulrika's doctoral thesis at the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre showed that 87 out of 100 children (of which 51 were multilingual) who screened positive for language at the age of 2.5 had DLD. Parent-reported concerns about the child's language development increased with the severity of language difficulties. At the age of 6, 85 of these children participated in a follow-up study. The results showed that 87% still had language diagnoses, and 24% also had other diagnoses such as Autism or ADHD. Parent-reported concerns now also occurred for other developmental areas in children with DLD. Multilingual children with DLD performed significantly worse in several language domains. Despite speech therapy interventions offered between 2.5 and 6 years of age, families participated on average only in half of the sessions offered. Children with DLD reported a deterioration in quality of life, especially in the school situation.

Funding

• The Local Research and Developmental Council of Gothenburg and Bohuslän, Västra Götalandsregionen
• Agreement on Medical Education and Research ALF of the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden
• Clas Groschinskys Memorial Fund
• Linnea and Josef Carlsson Memorial Fund
• The Solstickan Foundation
• Queen Silvia Children's Hospital Research Fund
• Petter Silverskiöld Memorial Fund
• The Adlerbertska Foundation 

Contact information