LINKS to Language™

Links to Language™ is a program co-authored by Marion Blank, Ph.D., Laura McKirdy, Ph.D., CCC/SLP, & Pamela Payne, M.S., CCC/SLP, that is designed to reach children with moderate to severe developmental problems. These children can have a variety of diagnoses: multiply handicapped, cognitive impairment, autism, pervasive developmental disorder, aphasia, neurological impairment, and marked developmental delay. Links to Language™ is a focused and effective system designed to engage children who are often functioning, for the most part, at a preverbal level. This program is a highly structured and sequenced program that provides children with the prerequisites for learning language. This program also provides a receptive and expressive language acquisition protocol.

Children learn preverbal skills that are designed to increase focused and sustained attention, memory, sequencing, and the chunking of information. When children acquire preverbal skills (Links to Language™ I, Preverbal Foundations of Discourse), the linguistic skills of receptive and expressive language (Links to Language™ II, Linguistic Foundations of Discourse) are implemented. Receptive language skills include recognition activities, following from simple to complex directions, and answering fourteen different types of question forms. Expressive language activities are comprised of imitating vignettes of increased length and complexity, all of which are demonstrated with small toy objects. Parent training and participation with the child in a home program are key to the success of this program.