Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Eleni Kanitaki
Lecturer
Eleni Kanitaki is a Lecturer on the MSc (Pre-Registration) and BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy programmes in the School of Health at Leeds Beckett University.
0009-0009-6065-4587
About
Eleni Kanitaki is a Lecturer on the MSc (Pre-Registration) and BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy programmes in the School of Health at Leeds Beckett University.
Eleni Kanitaki is a Lecturer on the MSc (Pre-Registration) and BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy programmes in the School of Health at Leeds Beckett University. She is an HCPC-registered Occupational Therapist and a member of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT).
Eleni completed her BSc (Hons) in Occupational Therapy in 2019 at the University of West Attica and an MSc in Development, Developmental Disorders and Clinical Practice at the University of York in 2023. Currently, alongside her lecturship, Eleni is a PhD researcher at Queen Margaret University, focusing on neurodiversity and menstrual wellbeing. Her research centres on the menstrual support needs of autistic people with learning disabilities and the multidisciplinary practices surrounding menstrual health. Her work adopts a feminist and neuroaffirming perspective and aims to inform inclusive practice across health and social care.
Eleni has clinical and support experience across Spain, Greece, and the UK, primarily with neurodivergent children and adults, as well as people with a range of needs. She has undertaken professional development in sensory integration, occupational therapy assessment, menstrual wellbeing and teaching in higher education.
Her research interests centre on neurodiversity and menstrual health, but she has also explored related areas, including mirror-writing in neurotypical children. She has experience with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and has published in peer-reviewed journals.
Eleni has completed a course on Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Tertiary Education at Queen Margaret University, mapped to the UK Professional Standards Framework. This informed her student-centred, active learning approach. On completion, she was awarded Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) by Advance HE (2024). Since then, she has designed and delivered student-centred teaching in online and in-person formats, contributed to academic conferences, and delivered CPD sessions and public talks on neuroaffirming approaches to menstrual wellbeing.
Languages
Greek, Modern (1453-)
Can read, write, speak, understand and peer reviewEnglish
Can read, write, speak, understand and peer reviewSpanish; Castilian
Can read, write, speak, understand and peer review
Publications (1)
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Unveiling mirror-writing: Exploring the phenomenon in typically developing children within the Greek school context
03 June 2025
Journal of Writing Research17(1):61-86 ARLE (International Association for Research in L1 Education)
Mirror-writing has consistently intrigued researchers throughout the years. This study is the first to explore Greek-letter and Arabic-digit reversals from typically developing children within the Greek School Environment. The hypotheses were: (1) Visual discrimination, visual memory, and visual-spatial relationships skills will negatively correlate with the occurrence of character reversals, (2) Left-oriented symbols will be reversed most frequently, (3) Children from year 1 will exhibit fewer reversals than children in nurseries. To test those predictions, 117 children (4.5 to 7.5 years) were recruited from Greek nurseries and primary schools. Character-recognition tasks were conducted, and children’s visual-perceptual ability was measured. Moreover, participants produced capital Greek letters and Arabic digits under dictation. Results yielded a significant negative correlation only between visual-perceptual skills and digit reversals in the total sample, suggesting that children with higher visual-perceptual skills tend to produce fewer digit mirrorings, unlike letters. Furthermore, left-oriented characters were significantly mirrored the most. Finally, only digit reversals were significantly reduced by year 1, probably due to the limited knowledge of letters by children in nurseries. Implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
