The DuBard Association Method® is a phonetic, multisensory teaching-learning strategy designed for students with
language deficiencies. It was devised originally by the late Mildred McGinnis, a teacher
at Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis.
The DuBard Association Method® has been modified and expanded by the late Etoile DuBard and the staff of The University
of Southern Mississippi DuBard School for Language Disorders since the school was
founded in 1962.
The DuBard School regularly conducts research on the DuBard Association Method®.
Click here to see some of the most recent reports.
Special features of the DuBard Association Method® include:
- Multisensory teaching that includes the use of auditory, visual, tactile, and motor-kinesthetic
cues for learning
- Use of the Northampton Symbol system for teaching sound-symbol relationships for reading
- Use of cursive writing for initial instruction. Students learn to read manuscript,
but write only in cursive.
- A slower rate of speech is used to give the students more time to understand what
is being said and more time to observe the speaker's lip movements
- Precise articulation is required from the beginning
- Color differentiation
- An individual student's book is made as he/she progresses through the Method
- The Method is implemented in a manner that is incremental and systematic. 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
- Instruction in phonetic rules is delayed until the upper levels of the DuBard Association
Method®
train in the dubard association method®