Self-Contained Classrooms for Children with Language Disorders

More than just learning to talk........... Did you ever know what you wanted to say but couldn’t find the right words? Well, now imagine you have the right words but you can’t get your mouth to say them correctly. This example describes the severe communication disorder known as Apraxia. Apraxia afflicts many different children and can occur on its own or together with other medical/developmental conditions such as aphasia, autism, and various learning disabilities. It involves a breakdown in the motor planning for speech. While in the past lack of speech has typically been associated with low academic performance (ie Mute = Dumb), and in many cases apraxic children have just been limited by the lack of appropriate educational programs. Without the ability to communicate, these children have little hope for enjoying the opportunities of life or contributing all they have to offer society. Regardless of intellectual potential, without effective communication skills their futures hold only the promise of dependency and isolation.

Apraxia is just one of the many types of neurologically-based language disorders that can occur. The most common of such include:

• Aphasia, which typically refers to a damaged portion of the brain involving memory recall,
• Apraxia, which involves a breakdown in the motor planning process for speech
• Attention decifit disorder, which may involve a communication disorder due to the inability to focus on learning language patterns appropriately,
• Dyslexia, which involves the ordering of words and phrases,
• Audiological processing disorders, which involve the processing of information as it is gathered by the ear, and
• Autism, which involves a lack of connectedness with the world and sensory challenges.

Children with speech issues usually show one primary area of deficiency, but will also most often have mild tendencies which may incorporate symptoms of the others. This is the reason why speech disorders are both difficult to diagnose and difficult to overcome under any one program. The one thing all of these language disordered do have in common is they are based in the brain. They occur due to a breakdown in the neurological processing. Some set of neurons is not firing or being received by the other right set of neurons. Somewhere in the child's developing brain, a pathway has not been established correctly on its own for one reason or another.

Treating the Whole Child...
The Program for Language Disordered Children at Magnolia Speech School is based on Mildred McGinnis' Association Method; a multi-sensory, phonics-based method of teaching oral and written language simultaneously. The program came about when Mrs. Matthews, founder of the school, noticed two of her first seven students at the school (all hearing-impaired) had difficulties with memory. The Association Method is consistent and structured, and now with 52 years of planning and refining behind it at Magnolia, this method has been molded into a very specialized curriculum which has met with continued success for children with language disorders. The program's to goal is to teach these children to speak, with appropriate language use and basic academic concepts, including reading and writing. The curriculum and therapy is intertwined and the children feel it is all just part of school. The atmosphere is very different from having speech therapy with one person, occupational therapy with another person and then preschool with yet another person – thereby getting different input styles at every turn. To a typical child different approaches may seem interesting, but to a child struggling with a neurological disorder – only the most consistent program encourages the brain to create new pathways of processing in hopes of working around the deficiency.

Our staff treats the whole child by promoting success in learning, social, emotional, intellectual and physical development while emphasizing the concept of being a worthwhile individual. The educational program for each child is individually designed and emphasizes the development of communicative, cognitive and social skills, which will facilitate the child's integration into society. The staff is dedicated to the promotion of a positive attitude toward learning through positive reinforcement and encouragement.

Because it is the ultimate goal of the school for children to complete this program ready to enter the mainstream of education, Magnolia Speech School has structured its Languaged Disordered Program into two stages:

• The Self-Contained Classroom is a place in which a well-trained oral educator, certifited in speech/language, is in charge of the day to day instruction in a setting that promoteing intensive, individual attention. Classroom instruction centers around Magnolia's unique curriculum which includes criteria in receptive language, expressive language, speech, reading, math, social studies, science and fine and gross motor skills. This curriculum is used to target individual goals, track progress and schedule daily activities. This classroom is supported by a variety of specialists including an audiologist, music teacher, a computer instructor, a speech pathologist and an occupational therapist. The instruction is guided by Magnolia's own curriculum, which includes 10 subject areas.
• The Mainstream Program is crucial to the success of the children that leaving our program. The program goal is to integrate children into mainstream education within five years, though it does vary with each child. We offer a transitional classroom helping to orient the children to the different demands of a mainstream classroom . We also help parents by working with the main stream school to help select the best available teacher and classroom setting for the child's first year away from Magnolia. Magnolia's staff continues to serve students through consultation, in-service, problem solving, outpatient speech and tutoring as long as there is need.