The goal of the auditory-oral approach is to give children with hearing loss the necessary spoken language skills to be mainstreamed and independent in the hearing world. 

SJI-KC provides an auditory-oral education composed of academic instruction, intensive language development and individual speech-language therapy through our four programs: Shannon Center Early Intervention Program, academic classrooms, clinical services and support services. The school provides children with hearing loss and their parents a communication option - the gift of speech and spoken language, preparing them for mainstream education. 

In 1995, St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf - Kansas City opened as a satellite campus of St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Kansas City school is wholly independent of any diocese and holds current 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The school is a member of OPTION schools, an international organization of private schools promoting the development of spoken language for children with hearing loss.

SJI-Kansas City serves children with hearing loss from all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds in the greater Kansas City area, from birth through age ten.  In our school, children with all degrees of hearing loss make maximum use of their residual hearing with necessary amplification to facilitate language and speech development.