Magnolia Speech School Demonstration Program, Berwyn, Pennsylvania

Magnolia Speech School in Jackson, Mississippi has been using the Association Method to improve the lives of children for nearly half a century. This private non-profit program has a tradition of enrolling students whose parents have relocated from diverse parts of the country in order to give their offspring the benefits of Magnolia's exceptional curriculum.

Thus, TALK is thrilled and honored to have been selected by Magnolia to establish its first branch, the only Association Method Program in Pennsylvania, in fact the entire Northeast. The Association Method is highly intensive, incremental and systematic in its design, enabling seriously communication-impaired children to acquire reading, writing and oral language skills.

The classes at Magnolia Speech School Demonstration Program are taught by a speech pathologist, a special education teacher, two assistant teachers and sensory integration trained occupational therapists. The teachers have received intensive training at Magnolia in Jackson. Our goal is to maintain the integrity of the Association Method as well as the standard for excellence that the Magnolia Speech School in Jackson has set. Therefore, we are receiving intensive mentoring, consultation, and oversight from Magnolia's professional staff.

In addition, pupils receive sensory integration occupational therapy as needed, since problems with sensory integration often accompany apraxia and many neurodevelopmental disorders, and interfere with the child's ability to focus and learn. This is provided by Jeanetta Burpee and two of her trained occupational therapists. Ms. Burpee also provides ongoing staff training for all of our professionals.

What we do here will have wide-reaching impact. Now that the model classroom is firmly in place, we will be able to add additional classes in subsequent years and begin to address TALK's greater goal: providing every child who needs it access to Association Method programming. Our success with the demonstration program will enable it to become an "incubator" for future Association Method programs in both the public and private school sectors and provide hands-on training for college, post-graduate and professional development of both speech pathologists and special educators.

TALK is committed to ensuring that parents do not have to break up families and/or relocate to get appropriate services for their severely language-disordered children.

Our Staff

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