The Heartbreaking Case of Genie

1134 Words3 Pages

Social isolation is one of the most severe punishments known to man. However, for one innocent girl, known as Genie, social isolation was all she knew. Genie was a nickname given to a feral 13-year-old girl who had been a victim of being severely abused and neglected by her parents, in her own house in Arcadia, California. Prior to Genie being discovered in 1970 by Los Angeles child welfare authorities, much of her life consisted of being locked alone in her room strapped to a potty chair or a crib resulting in her being immobile (Reynolds & Fletcher-Janzen, 2004). While Genie was locked away in her room she was never exposed to speech and would get beat for any noises she would make. Her father, Clark Wiley only interacted with her through barking and growling at her; as a result of this extreme isolation Genie missed the critical period to acquire language (Curtiss et al., 1974; Reynolds & Fletcher-Janzen, 2004). Immediately after Genie had been found she became a new subject for researchers to study and examine the theories of critical periods on humans to learn and understand language. Unfortunately, soon after Genie turned 18, her mother forbid any of the scientists from anymore testing and observations, which ultimately decreased any and all process Genie had made towards learning and understanding language.
Genie’s abuse and social isolation was mainly a result of her father’s decision and justification that Genie was severely mentally retarded and believed hiding her from the world was the best option for everyone (Curtiss, 1988). The only visual stimuli that Genie could interact with were her potty chair, crib, carpet, and plain empty walls. Genie’s severe neglect and abuse in her childhood ultimately lead her t...

... middle of paper ...

...tiss, Susan (1988), "Abnormal language acquisition and the modularity of language", in Newmeyer, Frederick J., Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey: Volume 2, Linguistic Theory: Extensions and Implications 2, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 96–116, doi:10.1016/0013-4694(86)90177-X
Maratsos, M. (1979). Is There Language After Puberty?. Psyccritiques, 24(6), 456-457. doi:10.1037/018902
Reynolds, Cecil R & Fletcher-Janzen, Elaine, eds. (2004), Concise Encyclopedia of Special Education : A Reference for the Education of the Handicapped and Other Exceptional Children and Adults (2 ed.), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 428–429, ISBN 978- 0-471-65251-9
Venn, J. R., & Short, J. G. (1973). Vicarious classical conditioning of emotional responses in nursery school children. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 28(2), 249-255, doi:10.1037/h0035717

More about The Heartbreaking Case of Genie

Open Document