Michelle Stagg was the oldest of 11 children; her oldest son had hit all the major milestones right on schedule. She knew kids. But she had a hard time getting anyone to pay attention when she said there was something wrong with her obviously healthy 2 1/2-year-old, Zachary.
She couldn't quite put her finger on it. But he only knew a handful of words. He'd never learned those baby standbys, "mama" and "dada" or "bye-bye." When he was upset, he'd violently shake his head and say "we," though she and her husband, Mark, were convinced he meant "no.""He was mad and frustrated because no one understood him," she said. "He couldn't play with other kids. He couldn't communicate with them."
Later, her daughter Eliza could say a few words. But she rarely talked. And when she did, she, too, mixed up the sounds of words.
After examinations by a psychologist and a speech pathologist, the Staggs learned that Zachary had "specific language impairment." Eliza would be diagnosed with the same problem later.
The children could hear and understand what others said to them. But somewhere in the process of trying to use the language themselves, things got scrambled. It's not uncommon, according to speech-language pathologist Candace Stapley, who works at Primary Children's Medical Center. She sees lots of children who have normal receptive language skills but for unknown reasons are delayed when it comes to using language.
When she met Zachary and Eliza, they were "pretty typical" examples of specific language impairment. "They could follow directions and understood what was being said to them, but they had a lot of frustration because they couldn't tell you what they wanted. They were unable to answer questions and express needs and wants," Stapley said.
The impairment often results in frustration-induced behavior problems.
Michelle Stagg would point to pictures and say, "Where's the car?" Zachary would find the car. But when she asked what it was, he couldn't answer. Besides that, the problem was isolating her children from others.
"I was so concerned about the social aspects," she said. "I wondered how they would handle life if we didn't get past this."
They did, indeed, get past it.
Stapley started working intensively with Zachary; Eliza bonded with a different speech therapist. And they taught the Staggs how to work with their children continuously at home.
It involved lots of conversation, in conjunction with play. Play with the car. Say car. Ask about the car. And do it again and again and again.
Children with this impairment don't pick up language in the environment like most of their peers. Therapists and parents do a lot of "modeling," "where you constantly talk about what you're doing, what the child is doing, what the child is seeing, everything, using very short sentences," said Stapley. "They need intense input."
Results were both startling and rapid. Within a few months, Zachary was talking. Within a year, no one would have known he'd had problems. Now barely 6, he has become a socially adept child who thrived in kindergarten.
Eliza, 4, had less severe problems. But she's still struggling with some of the phonetic sounds. For instance, she tried to say "kid" and instead said "dub." That's quite rare these days, her mother said.
They are expected to have completely normal school experiences, as far as communication is concerned, and flourish in part because their parents got them help early.
Stapley said that history shows the sooner a child gets speech therapy, the better he or she does in school. Language and communication problems, left unchecked, spill over into reading and spelling, social activities, everything. "Having a child be up to age level with language skills is very important."
The Stagg family life changed dramatically once the two children were able to say what they wanted, tell what they needed, express what had happened to them.
Anyone who suspects a child may have speech-language difficulty should contact the child's school or consult a speech therapist, Stapley said. It can mean the difference between success and failure in school -- and in life.