September 26, 2005
Genie's Fate
A girl, a human being, who grew up tied to a potty chair for over ten years. She lived under conditions worse than that of in prison. Her name is Genie. She was abused by her father, and left alone in the dark, empty room in silence. Genie's father shot himself after finding out that she was in public, and his last notes said, "They will not understand". What would be this man's excuse to be such brutal and inhumane? Genie had the least interaction with her family. She was beaten by her father, when made least sound.
Genie's patience is extreme. She went through hard life. Even after being granted "freedom", she had no choice, but to be an experimental subject for the next few years. Throughout the tests, Genie's left brain proved to have almost no process. She nearly had no left brain, therefore wasn't able to learn language efficiently. The scientists also wondered if Genie was born retarded. However, she had almost perfect right brain-nonverbal process. The Story of Genie reports, "She scored the highest recorded score ever on tests that measure a person's ability to make sense out of chaos and to see patterns. Her abilities to understand and to think logically were also strong. She had a perfect score on an adult-level test that measured spatial abilities" in the guide Learning about Learning.
Afterall, she may not have been retarded but missed her once in a lifetime chance to learn language. Her parents failed her to learn language during her critical period.
The parents of Genie tortured her. Still, her mother wasn't embarassed enough that she sued The Genie Team. Even though Genie might have been under pressure of testings, it was through the team's support and help that she learned communication and was rebirn to the world again.
Posted by lcisbold at September 26, 2005 08:09 PM