A Leawood couple has donated $1 million to establish a professorship in speech research at Kansas University.

Fred and Virginia Merrill, who also donated money to start the Merrill Advanced Studies Center at KU, donated the money.

Mabel Rice, professor of advanced studies and director of the Merrill Center, will be the first researcher to fill the endowed chair. She specializes in specific language impairment, which prevents young children from communicating well with others.

“It’s like being out of phase,” Rice said. “Children with what is known as specific language impairment will say things like, ‘Mommy happy,’ or ‘Her go now.’ For most kids, they outgrow that by the time they were 3 years old, but for these kids, it stays with them.”

Unable to clearly express themselves, children with specific language impairment often become frustrated and are more likely to be teased or picked on, which makes it more difficult for them to make friends, Rice said.

Rice has tracked the language development of about 400 children for 10 years to understand the long-term effects of specific language impairment.

“Eventually, the children with language acquisition problems do move beyond their particular problem,” she said.

“The language problem creates the impression that the children are socially immature, although their social awareness is much like their peers.”

The Merrill Center is one of 13 centers and clinics under the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at KU. The center was established in 1990 and conducts small conferences that bring together scholars from different disciplines.

Virginia Merrill graduated from KU in 1947 with a degree in speech correction. Fred Merrill, a Kansas State University graduate, is chairman of Cereal Food Processors Inc. of Mission Woods.