1. Development (continued)

2. Learning Objectives 1. Define the term “wild child”
2. Explain theories of language development.
Discuss how neglect and social isolation affect cognitive (mental) and physical development.
Evaluate the roles of nature (heredity) and nurture (experiences) in development.
Key Terms: wild (feral) child; abuse; nature vs. nurture debate; language acquisition device; babbling stage; one-word stage; two-word stage; Eric Lenneberg; Noam Chomsky; critical period; plasticity

4. Definition Feral Child – a child who has lived in
isolation starting at a very
young age and thereby has
remained unaware of human
behavior and language

5. Romulus & Remus

6. Mowgli & Tarzan

7. Feral Children
Victor – (early 1800s) The wild boy of Aveyron. Found in the woods at about 11 or 12. He was probably partially mentally retarded. He never learned to use language.
Isabelle – Found at 6 (1947). In two months she was combining words. Within a year she had similar language to other 7 year olds.
Genie – (1970) 13 year old girl had lived whole life in total isolation in her home. She may or may not have been of normal intelligence but never able to acquire language.

8. Victor – The Wild Boy of Aveyron
Captured in January 1800
Estimated to be about 10 years old
His desires did not go beyond his physical needs
He could not speak or understand human language
He preferred raw food and ripped of any clothes that were put on him

9. Victor - The Wild Boy of Aveyron
Diagnosed as an “incurable idiot”
Put through numerous tests (psychological and physiological)
Made small progress in social behavior
Never learned to speak or understand human language

10. Isabelle
An illegitimate child she had been kept in isolation by her grandfather and fed by her deaf-mute mother (who communicated with her through gestures)
Found 1938 at the age of 6 in Ohio
Made Astonishing progress: Day > first vocalization after 2 months -> putting sentences together 11 months-> able to identify written words, to add to ten and to retell a story 18 months -> able to ask complicated questions; vocabulary of about 1,500 – 2,000 words
 Reached a normal mentality by the age of eight and a half years
 Covered in 2 years the usual stages of learning- that ordinarily requires six!

11. Genie Characteristics: Weight- 59 pounds Height- 54 inches Incontinent
Unable to chew
Barely able to swallow
Unable to focus her eyes beyond 12 feet
Unable to cry
Could not fully extend her arms or legs
Could not tell the difference between hot and cold
Spoke very little.  “Stopit”, “Nomore”, and other negative
She only understood about 20 words

12. Genie
From the age of 20 months, she lived in nearly total isolation. For 11 years Genie was harnessed naked all day long to a toddler's potty seat At night, with her arms restrained, she slept in a sleeping bag inside a "crib-cage" made of wire and wood.
Whenever Genie made noise, her father would bark like a ferocious dog or beat her.
Her 'toys' were cottage cheese containers, two plastic raincoats, & threadless spools of thread,
Found in November 1970 in California, at 13 years of age she could not stand erect and was unable to speak except 2 words: “Stopit“, “Nomore“
1971: her language resembled that of a normal months old child (one year after her discovery)  two-word utterances, EX. “Want milk.“, “Big teeth“
But: NO vocabulary explosion after months
Could not formulate questions, EX “Where is may I have a penny?“ “I where is graham cracker on the top shelf?“
Present condition: speech development is not perfect, but she can say most things she wants; lives in an adult foster home in California
victim of lifelong child abuse
, unlike 99 percent of righthanded people, seemed to use the right hemisphere of her brain for language
, the telegraphic stage seemed to be the stopping point in Genie’s language development
Susan Curtiss, a graduate student from UCLA who worked closely with Genie for over six years
On November 4, 1970 she was brought into a welfare office in California by her mother, who claimed that she and her daughter were victims of abuse from the woman's husband.

14. Children raised by animals
Kamala and Amala
The “wolf children“ Kamala (8y.) and Amala (2y.) had been living with a family of wolves in a cave in a jungle in India
In 1920, they were discovered in Midnapore, by a missionary who took charge of them
Preferred to sit in the darkest corner of their room
Fingers and toes were deformed, they were not able to stand upright
snarled at other kids and cried like wolves
Amala died in September 1921
Within 5 years Kamala had a vocabulary of more than 40 words: “ha“ (yes), “hoo“ (cold); she was also able to name objects
1929: Kamala died
They remained on all fours, enjoyed raw meat, and were given to biting and attacking other children if provoked

15. Children raised by animals
Oxana Malaya
At the age of 3, her alcoholic parents left her neglected daughter outside one night and she crawled into a hovel where the family kept dogs
Between the ages of 3 and 8, she lived with the dogs in a kennel of the back garden of her family home
In 1991, the “dog child“ was found in Ukraine, barking and crawling on all fours
At an orphanage school, she was taught to walk upright, to eat with her hands and to acquire language;
2006: at the age of 23, she is able to speak, but there is no cadence or rhythm or inflection to her speech; she can count but not add

16. How do people learn to speak a language?
One theory, called the Environmentalist Hypothesis, holds that people learn language through their interactions with others, especially from hearing their parents speak.
Another is that individuals are born with the rules for language ingrained in them (called nativist theory of language. Noam Chomsky theorized humans are born with a language acquisition device LAD
A third proposal, the Critical-Period Hypothesis, states that people must learn language within a critical period during early development if they are ever to comprehend and master the structure of language (Eric Lenneberg)

17. The Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg, 1967)
Before age 2, language acquisition is not possible because the brain is not sufficiently mature
After puberty, natural language acquisition is not obtainable because the brain is mature, mental functions is complete and brain plasticity is lost
In order to acquire language, there are two necessary requirements: 1. a human brain 2. sufficient exposure to language during this critical period between the age of 2 years and puberty
neuroplasticity, is the lifelong ability of the brain to reorganize neural pathways based on new experiences

18. Normal Language Development
Language milestone
4 m
Babbling stage; appears innate, even babies born deaf go through the babbling stage
1 year
from babbling to words; one word stage (holophrastic stage) Ex. “Milk”
18 m
Two word stage (or telegraphic stage) Ex. “Want kitty”
3-10y
Begin to learn grammar and syntax rules Ex. “Sam hitted my head with a toy.”
11-14y
If you are learning a second language at this age you probably have “foreign accent”
15y +
Is difficult to learn a second language

19. Language Nature vs. Nuture
So the main question for Genie’s case:
Was she mentally disabled from birth? (nature)
Or was she deprived of language after her ‘critical period’? (nurture)

20. Was Genie Mentally Disabled From Birth?
Susan Curtiss: Genie, although functionally retarded because she had hardly lived and experienced the world around her, was not mentally deficient in any sense in which we typically think of as mentally deficient.

21. Conclusion
Some feral children acquire normal language ability, but only if found before the onset of puberty (EX. Isabelle)
Other feral children never master the rules of grammar and syntax
Unless children are exposed to language in the critical period, they lose much of their innate ability to learn a language and especially its grammatical principles
The Critical Period Hypothesis is not proven, but it is strongly supported!
feral children don't provide the best evidence in support of the critical period hypothesis (which is, any case, now generally accepted), partly because they may have been abandoned because of subnormality (Victor) or suffered emotional and physical trauma (Genie) that would affect their learning capacity.

23. Secret of a Wild Child Viewing Guide
Focus Questions
Can a loving environment reverse years of abuse and neglect?
Do people learn language from their environment or are they born with an innate ability to speak (Nature vs. Nurture debate)
If a person has not acquired language by the age of 13, can they learn to speak?

24. Copy the following questions. Skip 3-4 lines for your answer
Copy the following questions. Skip 3-4 lines for your answer. Turn in for a grade.
1. Explain the concept of a “wild child”.
2. What kinds of scientific study/research opportunities does discovering a wild child offer?
3. Describe the abuse Genie suffered. Who were her abusers?
4. At the age of 13 why can’t she talk?
5. Who was Victor? How does the story of Victor relate to Genie?
6. Why was Genie’s case so important to language researchers?
7. Describe Genie’s treatment and progress?
8. Who do you think should get custody of Genie? Who really cares about Genie?

25. 9. What happened to Genie when the Rigler's grant money ran out?
10. Was Genie’s brain damaged from years of abuse or was she born that way?
11. How do you feel about the court’s decision to return Genie to her mother’s care? About her mother’s lawsuit?
12. In your opinion is this a sad or an inspiring story? EXPLAIN.
13. Where is Genie today?
14. Why would an experiment like Genie’s never be repeated?

27. Any Questions?

28. Who was the scientist in charge of studying Genies's language development?
Eric Lennenburg
Noam Chomsky
Susan Curtiss
David Rigler
The idea that principles of language are innate (i.e. genetically transmitted) was proposed by:
Eric Lennerburg
B.F. Skinner

29. Genie's language therapists switched to teaching her sign language because:
She refused to use her voice
Her parents had used some sign language with her
She had difficulty producing speech sounds
She had started to use gestures on her own
In the end, the scientist involved in evaluating Genie concluded that she:
Had learned some vocabulary, but had very abnormal language
Would make more progress with sign language than with spoken language
Could not learn language due to the possible mental retardation
Would continue to learn language, but it would occur slowly

30. Genie, her nearly blind mother, and her elderly grandmother disturbed the social worker. The three had come into the Social Welfare office in Temple City, California, to learn about resources for the blind. The date was November The social worker noticed that the "small withered girl" had "a halting gait" and "hands held up as though resting on an invisible rail," which gave her a curious, unnaturally stooped posture. The girl was so tiny that the social worker estimated she might be six or seven years old. She suspected the child might be autistic. But Genie was actually thirteen and had been in solitary confinement since she was two years old. Her 'jailer' was her father.

31. In the next few weeks, Genie's story came to light, and, shortly after it did, Genie's father killed himself. The father had locked Genie up to protect her from what he considered the dangers of the outside world. During those 11 years, Genie was harnessed naked all day long to a toddler's potty seat. At night, with her arms restrained, she slept in a sleeping bag inside a "crib-cage" made of wire and wood. Whenever Genie made noise, her father would bark like a ferocious dog or beat her.

32. Genie ate baby food, cereals, and soft-boiled eggs, all of which were fed to her. Her 'toys' were cottage cheese containers, two plastic raincoats, threadless spools of thread, and copies of TV Guide stripped of illustrations. Her bedroom walls were bare. She had no books, no radio, no television. The only words addressed to her were angry ones. She could say "stopit," "nomore," "no," and a few other negative words. At age 13, she understood only 20 words.

33. Genie's father also kept his wife and son, who was a few years older than Genie, captive. He rarely permitted them to speak or to go outside. Sometimes, he sat all day with a loaded shotgun in his lap.
Through a cracked-open window in her room, Genie may have heard airplanes overhead or faint piano music drifting from a neighbor's house. Two inches of sky and the side of a neighbor's house were all that she could see through the top of the covered glass.