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October 02, 2005
Genie
There are many things about the Genie case that are beyond astonishing. I think there were many downfalls to the research being done but more importantly, the study on language aquisition could not be conclusive because she was mentally retarded from birth (the reason why the father abused her in an act to protect her). The case, though recent, is inconclusive and thus, quite agitating to make any guesses about human nature with.
I am quite interested in why Genie was abused so. Her father (a severly depressed man) commited suicide and left a note saying "The world would never understand." His death is ambiguous also because his suicide could have been for selfish reasons (not wanting to go to jail for child abuse) or because of his mental state. He said he wanted to "protect" his daughter after finding out that she was slightly mentally retarded. His protection could have been from the outside world (which he was quite unhappy with from childhood because he was in so many foster homes) but like his other children, he probably got annoyed that Genie disrupted him from even simple things like thinking. Proof against the father's "protection" claim could be the nonsensical treatment including being "tied into a sleeping bag which restrained her arms (and)she was put into an over-sized crib with a cover made of metal screening." It almost seems he was afraid of her by locking her in restraints. There was no way she could have escaped the room; so the extra restraints seem unnecessary and done for mentally imbalanced reasons.
Also, I am quite interested in her learning the words "stopit" and "nomore." She might have learned these words from her mother who may have shouted when and if the father beat her too. But, the words are so childish, it seems like her language aquisition was activated but not continued.
Lastly, her physical development was strange. We all know about her spitting and her malnutrition and low body weight. Something odd I found was that she had two nearly complete sets of teeth. That could have been baby teeth and adult teeth. But, don't baby teeth fall out on their own? What do baby teeth need to be signaled to leave?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_children http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie http://www.feralchildren.com/en/pager.php?df=leiber&pg=3
JESS YEICH
Posted by lcisyeich at October 2, 2005 05:18 PM
Comments
Jessica,
I hadn't heard the fact that Genie had two sets of teeth. I think it is really interesting. Obviously, I am not a doctor or a dentist, but my thought would be that teeth have to be stimulated to fall out. In our childhood, we were all told to, for example, bite into an apple so that a loose tooth would fall out. I think that teeth probably have to have some sort of activation, or at least be used in order to fall out. Thus, because Genie never ate solid food her teeth were never stimulated to fall out. Just my idea. I quickly googled to see if there was any evidence of this in other feral children. However, it did not seem to hold true since the majority of the other children were raised in the wild and thus had to eat foods (such as meat) even tougher (texture-wise) than the normal human diet.
--Brenna DeCotis
Posted by: Brenna at October 2, 2005 10:47 PM