Abstract: Disclosed is a method for the processing of data coming from an adaptation layer for the transmission of messages in the form of a flow of cells on an ATM type asynchronous transfer network, the cells comprising a header followed by an information field. According to this method, the cells are received by a receiver terminal having a working memory and are processed so that the constituent data elements of a message are stored continuously in this memory. For this purpose, the method consists in reserving a memory location with a given maximum size in the working memory of the terminal and in continuously recording the constituent cells of one and the same message at this location. Application to transmission on an ATM network.