Genie is the name of a discovered young girl with Los Angeles on November 4th 1970, which was victim of ill-treatment for a long time.
Genius, born in April 1957, was the fourth child (but the second having survived) of an unstable couple. His/her mother was partially blind because of a cataract and of an separation of the Rétine and its father, twenty years the elder one of his/her mother, one was unbalanced mental, a long time depressive following an accident having cost the life his/her own mother.
At the twenty month age, Genie was going just to start to speak when a doctor announced with his family that it seemed a little slow, probably mentally delayed. The Genious father interpreted this opinion to the extreme and, believing it deeply delayed, made him undergo a severe insulation and a ritual ill-treatment, so “protecting it”.
Until its discovery, at the thirteen years and seven months age, Genie spent its days attached to a pot for child in shaped nappies. The night, if one did not forget it on the pot, it was attached in a bag of bed and was placed in a bed with bars covered with a metal lid. His/her father beat it each time it tried to formulate a word, grognait and shouted against it as with a dog so that it is keep silent and prohibited with his wife and her son of him to speak. During more than one decade it was completely cloîtrée, left only in a part, without any form of exchange, some kind that it is, with human. She became almost dumb and could only chatter like a child, pronouncing some words such as " stopit " and " nomore "
Discovered and rescue
The discovery of Genius took place when his/her mother, having finally enough courage to escape her dominating husband, succeeds in leaving her house and to take along his/her daughter with it. Genius, its mother and her maternal grandmother went to an office of social assistance to Temple City, in California, to recover the assistances for the blind men. An employee saw Genie and thought whereas it had six or seven years and was autistic. When the employee understood that Genie was actually almost fourteen years old, she immediately warned her superior, who announced the child to the police force. Genius was immediately sent to a hospital for children due to Malnutrition and his/her parents were accused for negligence on minor. The day of the judgment, the Genious father committed suicide with a firearm. The loads retained against his/her mother were abandoned owing to the fact that it had itself be victim of the ill-treatments of her husband.
When it was released for the first time, it was difficult to believe that it was thirteen years old. Genius went the made-to-order of a rabbit (" bunny walk "), holding its hands in front of it like legs, spit and scratched constantly. It did not emit almost any sound. It was unable to eat something of solid and had evil to swallow. It was not able to control its sphincters and its eyes did not manage to fix a too distant object. It weighed 27 kilos and measured 1m37.
It masturbated in a way excessive and pathological, which socially became problematic. (Curtiss 1977). The team of the hospital hoped that it can recover a pretense of normality, it quickly became a subject of study, in particular to discover if there exists a limiting age for the training of the language.
Hospital and the first progress
Its initial progress was very fast. Its psychomotor development started as of its arrival at the hospital. The third day it was able to only get dressed and with going to the toilets in a voluntary way. It quickly started to go in a more fluid way and was avid to learn from new words, showing finger all the objects surrounding it until one says to him the corresponding name.
The scientists wondered then if Genius could really completely recover years of ill-treatments which it had undergone, if its capacities of training were preserved, if a rich environment and stimulant could compensate for its past. Thus l'" expérience" started.
A team of scientists (named the Genius TEAM ) was composed, with for goal to study Genie and to answer the question: how the human being learn does? As in the past with other wild children, such Victor, raised the question to know if it were necessary really to study Genie or rather to leave it quiet, if to study it and take care of her were compatible.
In a few months it included/understood more than one hundred of words, even if it remained quiet most of the time. The team realized that Genie had been beaten as soon as it made noise. It was not known if its inaptitude to speak were due to its ill-treatments or its last years without any stimulation.
Genius started to stick particularly to certain members of the team. One of the members was very present, in particular every morning and at each important moment of the day, because some thought that to learn how to speak, it was necessary to extremely create a relational bond with another human being.
After 6 months, Genie left food in a family reception, the father of this family being the chief of the TEAM Genious.
Families of receptions, progress and limit
Jean Butler was the professor of Genie to Children' S Hospital. He became the adoptive Genious relative in a a little disconcerting way and against the opinion of the research team. Actually Genie had been entrusted temporarily to Butler but the guard was prolonged after Butler makes the request of it. It became very protective then with respect to Genie, preventing the other members of the research team to approach it. Butler continued to observe and note the behavior of Genius at his place, and noticed in particular that it had a tendency to accumulate and store ( hoarding ) various things, frequent thing in the maltreated children. When Butler required to become the legal adoptive Genious relative, its request was rejected.
Thereafter Genie turned over to the hospital and had a new relative of substitution, the therapeutist David Rigler. His Marilyn wife became new professor de Genie and used unusual methods. She let for example burst the anger of Genius and asked him to exteriorize its emotions while jumping, by claquant doors or by typing foot. It foot-note that Genie controlled the vocabulary best that the majority of the children acquiring the language. During this period, Genie was even able to speak about its years of ill-treatment:
MARILYN RIGLER: Where did you stay when you lived At home? Where did you live? Where did you sleep?
GENIUS: Potty flesh .
MARILYN RIGLER: You slept in the potty flesh?
GENIUS: Mmm-hmm. Potty flesh .
Genius remained with the Rigler family during the four following years.
Genius continued to recover and to develop. She ran, she smiled. She resembled, in a certain way, with a normal child 18-20 month. If you give him an object, it touched it initially end of the fingers, then caught it and carried it to the mouth for good to feel it. It seemed not to know when to use its eyes and when to use its direction of the touch.
One accompanied Genie in the street, the shops, and his thirst to learn was insatiable, it wanted to know the name of all the objects, any touch, all to taste. Many scientists observed it, and asked what it could bring well to science.
Genius continued to learn from the vocabulary by stages, but it was still not able to build true sentences. The scientists thought that to build sentences and to place words in a logical order, there was need for something present as of the birth of a child. And perhaps Genius did not have this faculty. One wondered then if it were not delayed mentally. If it were not delayed since its birth. Or if it had been wounded. Or if this delay were not due to the malnutrition or the lack of stimulation.
It is finally concluded that it was not delayed mental, even if it were unable to control the language. It was brilliant in the nonverbal communication and sometimes it was so much frustrated not to be able to say what it wanted that it caught a pen and a paper and in some features, it illustrated complex ideas and even feelings. It carried out in particular the score highest ever recorded with tests asking on a subject to find a direction with something of apparently chaotic and to find models there. It had also a normal test, for an adult, as for space capacities. Its capacities to be included/understood and reason logically were also important. Despite everything, it was unable to control the base of the language.
The researchers wondered whether Genius could speak a day normally. Could a teenager learn the language or it was too late? One realized that Genie was very gifted for all the tasks using the right part of the brain, but that for those using the left brain, and in particular the language, it failed. One of the last experiments carried out on Genie was to measure the activity of its brain whereas it carried out various tasks. One was very surprised when one realized that the activity of the left portion of its brain was almost non-existent, comparable with brains of children amputees of the left part.
Some advanced this inactivity of the left brain to explain its incapacity to control the language. Why its brain was so asymmetrical, the left brain develops only the first years of life, precisely those where Genie if was insulated? Does the left brain need stimuli and to hear language to develop?
Loss of the financings
In spite of progress of Genius, the National Institute off Mental Health , which financed the project, divided the funds in 1974. The following year, the Rigler family decided to stop her assumption of responsibility. Genius was then able to pronounce sentences like " Applesauce buy store".
End of childhood
Whereas the speakers did what they could to help Genie, the Genious mother also accepted assistance and was even operated of her cataract, which enabled him to recover the sight almost completely. In 1975, when Genie was eighteen years old, his/her mother which had been discharged and wished to deal with his/her daughter began again it with it. However, after a few months, his/her mother found the load too difficult and Genius was placed in a series of six specialized houses. In one of them, it was severely punished to have vomit and it did not open any more the mouth, would be this to only speak, during several months.
In October 1979, the Genious mother prosecuted the original research team (Curtiss, Rigler and others), showing them to be itself more interested in their study than with the wellbeing of Genius, pushing it within the limits of her endurance. The lawsuit was classified without continuation.
Current conditions
Today, (in July 2005) Genius lives in a house specialized for adults in the south of the California, with the shelter of the glances of the public and will remain there. His/her mother died in 2002-2003 and his/her big brother is always in life to date.
Catalog of films
In 2001, a film entitled Mockingbird Don' T Sing left, based on the life of Genius.
Song
The song '' Crooked Teeth '', about the female group, Killjoy Confetti, speaks about Genius.
Extract of Crooked Teeth :
It' S just another day in the suburbs off L.A.
Strapped down, she sleeps
She' S older than you think
Borne to the world in has potty flesh
Bunny walk from lack off wear
She was beaten for making noise
Oh perfect teeth!
References
- Curtiss, Susan (ED, 1977) Genius: Psycholinguistic Study off has Modern-day " Wild Child" . London: Academic Close Inc. (ISBN 0-12-196350-0)
- Rymer, Russ (1994): Genius: Scientific Tragedy has. London: HarperPerennial. (ISBN 0-06-092465-9)
- Russ Rymer, 1993-03: Genius: Year Abused Child' S Flight from Silence , ISBN 9780060169107
- Genius: Escape from has Silent Childhood , Rymer, Russ, 1994-08-25, ISBN 9780140174892
See too
External bonds
- '' Secret off the Wild Child '' - NOVA document transcript
- Genius, has modern-day Wild Child one FeralChildren.com
- Contradictions And Unanswered Questions In The Genie Puts: In Fresh Look At The Linguistic Evidence
- Sleep EEG Patterns in foourteen year old girl with severe developmental retardation
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