Genie The Wild Child Study

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When Genie , also known as Wild Child, was first found she was very pale and badly malnourished. Genie was also very underweight, weak and couldn't speak. Her condition was terrifying she was born in an environment where she didn't have much contact with human beings, and was basically tied to a toilet chair. Genie’s situation gathered people from all over the world, because they hadn’t seen like it. To some this experiment involves a “nature experiment,” because she was isolated her whole life and heard at least no words when isolated, but she still had that building block to learn. However, I believe that the “nurture environment,” was more necessary because without a nurture period it may never be regained. This enabled her to make up for …show more content…

When Genie was tested for brain development and language acquisition, her IQ increased a little but it still took her a while because she lacked that inborn language of exploring it because of her isolation. In this situation we can tell that a nature experiment wasn’t the best idea. Chomsky, believed that we humans possess a language that is innate. The language acquisition did not really work because of the isolation she was in. Innate meaning, inborn as in she is born with the building blocks on how to read or write or etc. Although she was born with the nature side but it still had stopped her from learning things such sounds and speaking. When she was taken care of in the hospital, Genie’s tests came out as she could understand way more than she could actually speak. Over time is when she slowly began to understand more. The fact that Genie was born in a vulgar environment explains how she lacked at language acquisition. A critical period when a baby must be exposed to language was said to be two to thirteen years old this was critical because the brain is “easier to work with.” Her case supports this because she was not exposed to language during the critical period so her brain lost the ability to learn the language she was supposed to

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