TALK School and The Association MethodThe basis for language learning and academics is provided by the Association Method.
The Association Method is a phonics-based, multi-sensory and multilevel curriculum designed to teach oral and written communication to people with severe communication disorders. Its goals are fluency and automaticity. It was developed by the late Mildred McGinnis at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St Louis over fifty years ago. The curriculum matches the strengths and needs of each individual child and works on the core deficits of speech and language, social interaction and behavior. Instruction progresses from the teaching of individual sounds to syllables, words of gradually increasing length, basic sentences and questions, more advanced sentence structures and the corresponding questions. Ultimately, when sufficient language skills have been achieved, a transition is made to traditional textbook formats for instruction. The curriculum covers all academic areas. The teaching procedures are specifically designed to reduce or alleviate the language-disordered child's difficulties in decoding, organizing, associating, storing and retrieving information pertinent to the production of clear, articulate speech . The Association Method is available in a number of areas throughout North America and has a long history of bringing speech, reading and writing, to children previously rendered nonverbal and illiterate by severe speech impairments. It has been used successfully to teach children with autism and severe apraxia to speak.  
  
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