We talked briefly about the case of "Genie" in my Media Discourse class and I decided to look it up after. I came across some other cases of feral children like Victor (a child who lived his entire childhood alone and was later found in filth) and Oxana Malaya, a Ukrainian girl who was raised by dogs.
The story of Genie is quite striking because unlike the other two, she actually lived in a house with her parents. However, they decided to lock her up in a room - in complete isolation. Since she barely had any human contact, she did not learn how to speak and so, did not acquire any first language. She was usually tied to a toilet and her arms and legs were left immobilised. Her parents never even bothered to potty train her, and so, when she was found at the age of 13 years and 7 months, she was still in diapers.
She had a characteristic "bunny walk" and she often spat and clawed at herself. While doing all these, she never made a sound, which led to the conclusion that she was most likely beaten by her parents when she made sounds and had subsequently learnt to avoid making any noises. She however started to make progress until the research funding was pulled.
She moved from foster home to foster home until she was finally taken back by her mother, who realised that it was too difficult to take care of her, and then sent her back to where? You guessed right...more foster homes. She experienced severe abuse and regressed into silence.
These days, Genie, who is about 55 or 56 years old now, is in an unnamed private facility for mentally underdeveloped adults.
Poor Genie.
