About
I grew up in Germany. After I studied Speech Therapy, Linguistics and Speech and Language Pathology in the Netherlands and in South Africa, I have been working as speech therapist, lecturer and research assistant in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. In my spare time, I get energized by doing Pilates and swimming. In order to relax, I enjoy reading modern and classical literature and doing Feldenkrais/Awareness through movement. Cultural activities (e.g. theatre plays and museums) are important sources of inspiration for me.
As a speech therapist, improving communication is among the most important goals of my research. Therefore, my research has a strong focus on the communicative abilities and disabilities of persons with aphasia. Aphasia is an acquired communication disability, often caused by a stroke, which affects the production and comprehension of language and the ability to read or write. It affects functioning in everyday life and thus influences social inclusion and wellbeing.
With my PhD project at the University of Oslo, I aim to gain a better understanding of the interactive organization of
"Participation in conversations by persons with aphasia".
I use conversation analysis to investigate how communication difficulties affect everyday activities of people with aphasia. My aim is not only to describe challenges, but also to point out opportunities for improved participation in family life for people with aphasia. I focus on activities such as telling stories, planning activities, in addition to interactions between parents with aphasia and their children.
Prof. Dr. Jan Svennevig (University of Agder and University of Oslo) and Dr. Suzanne Beeke (University College London) supervise my project.
Collaborations
COPACA - Communicatie en participatie bij chronische afasie
MemoGram - Grammar and memory: evidence from agrammatic aphasia and probable Alzheimer's disease in German, Italian and Greek
LOLA – the Laboratory for Oral Language Acquisition
Research interests: Aphasia, Conversation Analysis, Language impairment, Clinical Linguistics
Research groups
Publications and research
Scientific publications
Killmer-Rumpf, Helene
(2023).
How parents with aphasia deal with children’s resistance to requests.
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2023.2226303
Fyndanis, Valantis; Miceli, Gabriele; Capasso, Rita;
Killmer, Helene
; Malefaki, Sonia; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.
(2022).
Production of Sentential Negation in German and Italian Non-fluent Aphasia.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09894-4
Killmer, Helene
; Svennevig, Jan; Beeke, Suzanne
(2022).
Requests to children by parents with aphasia.
Aphasiology.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2022.2094335
Killmer, Helene
; Beeke, Suzanne; Svennevig, Jan
(2021).
Collaborative storytelling with a person with aphasia: Promoting agency in a multiparty interaction.
26 p.
Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders.
Vol. 11.
https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.20902
Killmer, Helene
; Svennevig, Jan; Beeke, Suzanne
(2021).
Joint planning in conversations with a person with aphasia.
Journal of Pragmatics.
Vol. 187.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.10.021
Noiray, Aude; Popescu, Anisia;
Killmer, Helene
; Rubertus, Elina; Krüger, Stella; Hintermeier, Lisa
(2019).
Spoken Language Development and the Challenge of Skill Integration.
Frontiers in Psychology.
Vol. 10.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02777
