Dr. Ensa Johnson is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) specialist and special needs educator. She completed her PhD studies at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, University of Pretoria, South Africa, in 2015, where she focused on determining pain vocabulary that children aged 6 to 9 use to communicate their pain. This enabled speech-language pathologists to identify vocabulary for children with complex communication needs to use on their communication boards or speech-generating devices. Ensa received a Margaret McNamara Education Grant in 2015 to financially support the completion of her PhD, as well as as well as a National Research Foundation (NRF) sabbatical grant.
Since completion of her doctoral studies, Ensa’s research has focused on children’s pain communication and pain assessment, in collaboration with Prof. Stefan Nilsson. Currently, Ensa is the South African primary investigator, with Prof. Nilsson as her Swedish counterpart, in a collaborative research project that resulted in the development of the PicPecc app to help children undergoing cancer treatment. This project has resulted in numerous publications.
In addition to her research in pain communication and assessment, Ensa is researching the implementation of AAC in various settings, including hospital intensive care units, schools, and courts. Ensa is rated by the NRF as an established researcher (C2 rating). To date, she has published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as 3 chapters in scholarly books.
Ensa worked for 11 years at the Centre for AAC and has been employed since January 2022 as a lecturer at the University of South Africa’s Department of Inclusive Education. She has supervised two PhD students and co-supervised three PhD students to successful completion as well as supervising or cosupervising 15 MA students to completion. She is currently supervising two PhD students and 7 MA students.
Detailed information on Dr. Johnson’s work and publications: https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Colleges/Education/Schools,-departments,-centres-&-instututes/School-of-Educational-Studies/Department-of-Inclusive-Education/Staff-members/Dr-E-Johnson
