Astrid Junker

I am an Associate Professor of Special Education.

I teach master students in special education in scientific theory and methodology, and teach the course named «Language, reading and writing difficulties and mathematical difficulties”. I supervise students doing a master’s thesis in special education and pedagogy. I also work with municipalities aiming to develop professional competence in schools and kindergartens.

Educated as a teacher and a speech and language therapist, I worked for nine years in school, PPT (the Norwegian municipality’s educational psychological service), Statped (the executive agency for the Ministry of Education and Research) and I have run my own speech and language therapy business.

Having worked with special educational questions, especially questions regarding around the dynamics between inclusive practices in ordinary teaching and the need for special education, multilingual language acquisition, language difficulties and mathematical difficulties, I developed an interest in and was motivated to do a PhD in special education, within the field of mathematical difficulties.

In 2024, I received my doctorate which focused on how six-year-old grade 1 students with low and high number sense proficiency multimodally communicate mathematical patterning understanding.

My key research interests are beginner’s training, mathematical difficulties, language difficulties, plurilingualism, inclusive research (methods). I have a special interest in exploring how to engage a diverse student group in doing mathematics by communicating mathematics multimodally and embodied.