DuBard School for Language Disorders

DuBard School History & Mission

The DuBard School for Language Disorders was established in 1962 and is a clinical division of The University of Southern Mississippi's School of Speech and Hearing Sciences.

The DuBard School is a public school that offers a full time enrollment program, which is the total educational program for approximately 80 students each school year. These students have severe language-speech disorders, hearing impairments, and the written language disorder of dyslexia. The students transfer back into their local school districts when they have achieved the oral communication and academic skills necessary to be independent and successful in a traditional school environment. The full time enrollment program is offered at no charge to students and their families. Students come from school districts across the state.

The DuBard School outclient therapy program provides fee-based individual and small-group therapy for clients ages birth through adulthood who have a diagnosed language, speech or hearing disorder, or a combination of these disabilities. Included are those whose learning differences are in oral language, speech, reading or a combination of oral and written language deficits, including dyslexia.

The DuBard School also serves as a referral service, as more than 400 referral calls are received by the school each year. One of our goals in bringing the gift of language to individuals with communication disorders, including the written language disorder of dyslexia, is to ensure all individuals receive the best services available, no matter where they are located.

The school is staffed by nationally certified speech-language pathologists, certified academic language therapists and educators of students with hearing loss. They teach children ages 3-13 through a special phonetic, multisensory program called the DuBard Association Method®.

Professional development opportunities are offered in the DuBard Association Method® through supervised practicum for university students, courses, staff development programs and on-site consultations across the United States and in several foreign countries. The DuBard School is a practicum site for university students majoring in speech-language pathology, audiology or dyslexia therapy. It also serves as an observation and practicum site for those in nursing, kinesiology, science education, music, and social work. 

The school was designed to serve students with severe language-speech disorders, including developmental aphasia and childhood apraxia of speech, deafness and hearing impairments, as well as those with the written language disorder of dyslexia.

 

The DuBard School is a United Way Agency.