Copyright 1993 Financial Post Ltd. 
Saturday, April 24, 1993,  Page S7

"Wild child" let down by scientists' best intentions
By Araminta Wordsworth

Book Review -- Genie: An Abused Child's Flight From Silence
by Russ Rymer, HarperCollins, 221 pp., $ 26.75.

How we learn language is the enigma at the centre of this book. It seems so
simple - our children master it every day - yet linguists still know 
remarkably little about the process.

That is why in the past the discovery of "wild children" has provoked great
excitement among both scientists and the public. Abandoned or lost, these 
feral beings often returned to civilization capable only of grunting. They 
represent an opportunity to see how language is acquired.

A famous example is Victor, the so-called wild child of the Aveyron, who
in the early 19th century was discovered in southern France. Brought to 
Paris, he was treated by Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, who is often called 
the father of child psychology. Victor was, however, his most frustrating 
student.

Despite all his teacher's best efforts, Victor never learned to put a
sentence together, although he could identify objects such as milk and set 
the table for dinner. Their partnership was celebrated in a film by Francois
Truffaut, The Wild Child, which premiered in 1970.

In one of those coincidences that make truth stranger than fiction, about the
time this movie was playing in Los Angeles, linguists and doctors there found
their own wild child in the city's sprawling suburbs. As U.S. writer Russ
Rymer notes, the parallels between the two cases were striking.

Genie, as she is called throughout the book, had been kept confined in a room
in a house in Temple City in the San Gabriel foothills. During the day, she 
was tethered to a potty seat and deprived of most toys; at night, she was 
confined in a crib. Most important - or most dreadful - throughout this 
period no one spoke to her.

Her case was discovered in the usual way - quite fortuitously. After years of
abuse by her domineering husband, Genie's blind mother found the courage to 
flee from the house with her daughter. They were trying to find the office 
for services for the blind when they stumbled into a welfare office.

Here an astonished worker saw "a small, withered girl with a halting gait and
a curious posture - unnaturally stooped hands held up as though resting on an
invisible rail." She seemed to be six or seven years old. In fact, she was a
teenager, although she weighed 59 pounds and was only 54 inches tall.

Almost immediately, the girl became a prize to be fought over by various
factions of the pediatric, psychological and linguistic community, each with
their own theoretical axe to grind. For example, would Genie's success at
language depend on her native resources or on the ability of the world to 
reform her with its teachings?

Instead of being allowed to develop a relationship with one person, she was
shunted around at the convenience of the doctors and researchers, and 
subjected to batteries of tests.

There was an additional pressure: Studies have shown that language
development ends with puberty. Researchers knew they had a very limited window
of opportunity. Genie was simultaneously being toilet trained, coping with the
onset of menstruation and learning how to speak.

In hindsight, the results seem all too sadly predictable; tragic even. At
first, Genie blossomed and seemed to progress, then it became apparent she 
had plateaued. Finally, she was returned to the custody of her mother.

In the last analysis, everyone failed Genie. They let her out of the room
only to re-imprison her.

In the able hands of Rymer, this somewhat bleak material has the suspense of
an unfolding mystery. The author has little consolation to offer those who
demand upbeat endings except to suggest that the scientists who failed Genie
have become as imprisoned as she has by the results.

3 responses total.

This item linked as language 44.

Brilliant assholes,

This was also covered by All Things Considred several months ago.

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