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Speaking out on language development
By Eugenia Smith
Kathryn Kohnert
Photo by Jayme Halbritter
Kathryn Kohnert
Assistant professor, speech-language-hearing sciences
Education
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Professional experience
University of Minnesota, 2000–
Licensed speech-language pathologist, Kaiser Permanente, San Diego, 1992–2000
Consultancies
El Centro, Minneapolis
La Familia Guidance Center, St. Paul
El Colegio, Bilingual Charter School, Minneapolis
Her students say…
Kohnert's a “sass-talking dynamo” (end -of-semester evaluations).
Her heroes are…
Her parents: “I am the fifth of seven children and was born and raised in Waseca, where my parents still live. They are two of the brightest people I have ever met. I got my work ethic from them, and I strive to have their integrity as well.”
In her free time…
She is rehabbing her 100-year-old Mpls. house and spending time with her 8-year-old son. (“Of course I also love reading, as does any academic.”)
Secret pleasure…
Watching television crime mysteries (“very guilty pleasure”)—“Yep, I’m a ‘Perry Mason,’ ‘Matlock,’ ‘Murder She Wrote,’ ‘Law and Order’ fan.”
People would be surprised to learn…
“… that I am a native Minnesotan—born and bred. I have some characteristics (fast talking, relatively frank) that are very un-Minnesota-like. But I’m a Minnesotan at heart. I love weather, I admire kindness, I appreciate stoicism and quiet strength.”
Newspapers are filled with reports of poor performance and high dropout rates in America's increasingly diverse schools, especially in places like the Twin Cities, whose culture has been transformed by waves of immigration. Kathryn Kohnert wants to turn those statistics on their heads. Her view is that if something isn't working, it can be fixed—with some know-how, basic research, and canny, culturally unbiased rethinking of the problem.
While working as a speech-language pathologist for bilingual children and adults in San Diego, Calif., in the early 1990s, Kohnert found she had questions that were not being addressed in research about how to diagnose language disorders in bilingual speakers. “We had some gaping holes in our understanding,” she says.
So she enrolled in a dual program at San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego, to study the cognitive underpinnings of language in typical second-language learners and in monolingual children with language disorders.
Kohnert realized the Ph.D. would allow her more broadly to influence clinical language assessments. As a researcher, she could both discover new ways to diagnose language disorders and train the next generation of speech pathologists. She could, she says, “have a bigger impact on the profession”—and, ultimately, on performance in the schools, where the research really takes root.
Born and raised in rural Minnesota, Kohnert traveled to Bolivia in 1978–79 as an exchange student. In the 1980s, she took a time-out from college to live for several years in Mexico, where she perfected her Spanish and immersed herself in communities far more diverse than the Minnesota she grew up in. Little did she know that, some years later, the Minnesota she once again called home would be much changed—it would look more like the rest of the world—and that she would be a national leader in cognitive research on language development, especially in bilingual speakers.
What Kohnert found was a Minnesota transformed by immigration from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the Twin Cities today, roughly 24 percent of children in Minneapolis public schools and 41 percent in St. Paul public schools are learning English as a second language. Many don't begin learning English until they reach school, leaving them vulnerable to academic failure. This refashioned Minnesota has become a living laboratory for Kohnert's research—“fertile ground,” she says, for developing an understanding of first- as well as second-language learning.
Reaching beyond the lab
Kohnert's base of research is her laboratory in Shevlin Hall. But her sphere extends well beyond campus. At a local preschool, she works to identify children who might have language disorders. (Early identification “can make a world of difference,” she says, in children's future reading and general academic performance levels.) And in off-campus workshops, she teaches their primarily Spanish-speaking parents how to foster language development in their bilingual children.
Back in the classroom, Kohnert's work is steering the next generation of educators and speech pathologists. In the department's introductory course, Communication Differences and Disorders, Kohnert stresses the importance of recognizing diversity within a broad language-learning framework. An understanding of normal variation across cultures, languages, ages, and abilities is needed, she says, to truly understand what are traditionally called “disorders.”
The traditional language assessment model reflects the biases of the dominant culture of native English speakers, Kohnert says. It is based on monolingual, middle-class, white students, and does not take into account other types of language learning, or the learning of two or more languages either simultaneously or sequentially. Kohnert's aim is to identify and develop less biased ways to assess language and learning.
Kohnert is especially concerned about the number of bilingual kids who are either over- or under-identified as having communication disorders. Teachers and administrators need to recognize that when kids are learning two languages, they will develop proficiency at different rates, she says. Learning differences in linguistically and culturally diverse populations of children may be just that—differences, and not problems. A perceived lag or measured “deficiency” or anomaly in vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation does not mean a disorder—and to treat it as such can be damaging to the child.
Only careful diagnostic assessment using culturally sensitive methods and benchmarks can establish the presence or absence of a bona fide learning problem, says Kohnert, who hopes to discover “ways to intervene to maximize each child's learning ability while respecting their diverse experiences.”
Interdisciplinary collaboration is key to a full and rich understanding of language learning, says Kohnert. Pulling together insights from sociology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, education, and linguistics, she adds, “I think we can make substantial headway in valuable assessment techniques for diverse learners which will translate in better assessments for everyone.”
Kohnert hasn't strayed far from her roots as a practicing clinical speech-language pathologist. “Working as a clinician is really what has informed my research,” she says. In turn, this research will one day transform clinical practice. In the department's Child Language Lab—a national mode for research on cognitive and language processing skills—Kohnert and codirector Jennifer Windsor are working with both children and adults to better understand language development. The end result will be better assessment and treatment.
Each day, this work takes Kohnert one step closer to the language assessment tools she seeks. And her success has been duly noted, not just by admiring students and colleagues but also by her colleagues across the University. Her groundbreaking research earned her a 2003 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, which recognizes junior faculty whose work demonstrates “originality, imagination, and innovation” and demonstrates “potential to make significant contributions to their disciplines.”
Intern Joanna Dornfeld contributed to this story.
