Areti Okalidou

Professor, Department of Educational and Social Policy

 

Areti Okalidou, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is Professor of Speech-Language Pathology and Speech Therapy in the Department of Educational and Social Policy at the University of Macedonia and Director of the Inter-Institutional Graduate Program in Communication Disorders and Sciences. She has clinical specialization in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP, A.S.H.A) and a doctorate in Speech and Hearing Sciences from City University of New York.

 

She was a founding member of the Department of Speech Therapy at the Technological Educational Institute of Patras, where she served as an Assistant Professor. She also taught at the Department of Speech Therapy at Hunter College in New York and recently at the Department of Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences at Gallaudet University in Washington. She has extensive experience as a speech-language pathologist in schools, hospitals, speech and hearing clinics, and early intervention centers in both the U.S. and Greece. She has served as a member of the Central Health Council of the Ministry of Health and as Ministry of Education committee Coordinator for the labor rights of Greek speech therapists.

 

Her research focuses on issues of phonetics, development, and assessment of the Greek language, particularly in children with hearing loss and cochlear implants. She has been the scientific supervisor of funded projects (such as EPEAEK) for the education of children with cochlear implants and a partner in the European Research Program FP7 ITN Marie Curie “iCARE”, aimed at enhancing the auditory rehabilitation of children with hearing problems. She has also served as an expert at the Research Executive Agency in Brussels, with the World Health Organization on issues of hearing loss as part of the ‘WHO Rehabilitation 2030 Development Group’, in the IALP Committee on Audiology, and in the Special Interest Group on Hearing Loss of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP). She is a Guest Associate Editor for the journal Communication Disorders Quarterly and a reviewer for international journals. Her research has received funding and acclaim at both national and international level.