The paper describes a successful attempt to stimulate expressive language in Becky, a young child with Cornelia de Lange syndrome, a condition characterized by moderate to severe mental retardation, dwarfed stature, and excessive body hair. The child participated in infant stimulation and individual speech therapy and her expressive output has grown to spontaneous two and three word sentences and imitation of five word sentences. Therapy procedures have featured stimulation which included oral-motor play and use of noise making objects along with maximum sensory input, modeling of sounds and words (especially very highly inflected verbal models), expansion and parallel talking, and intense parent involvement. Reasons are suggested both for the lack of speech improvement in other children with the syndrome as reported in the literature and for Becky's success in developing language. (CL)