Feral Children Steinberg & Sciarini Chapter 4 Psycholinguistics Sook Whan Cho

Victor: the wild boy of Aveyron

Victor (pp. 91-93), 11-12 years of age Captured by hunters in the woods in Aveyron district of France in 1800. Speech training proed to be very frustrating; repetition of some words and sounds Aware of the world around him and the awareness had a dramatic positive effect. A little bit of letter recognition, progress in reading, associatiation of words with objects, overgeneralizations like normal childre. Senses, memory, and attention were intact, ablity to compare, judge, read and write improved. Itard has taught Victor French for five years.

Genie, 13 years of age

Found in 1971. Brutally abused and mistreated, being locked in a smll rom in her house by her father for the preceding 12 years. Given no toys to play except for some empty containers, empty thread spools, and occasional magazine, nothing much to look at (small windes being covered by curtains), little to touch, little to do. During her training at the hospital, Genie displayed some ability to understand and to imitate (poorly, though). Except for some words (mother, red, bunny), she had little; some limited comprehension. Cognitive/linguistic abilities: little more than those of a 2;0. After a training for 8 years, and she made little progress in producing language although her ability to understand improved quite rapidly. (pp. 93-95(

Isabelle, confinement with a mute mother (pp. 95-96) Found in 1938 Her mother had sustained a brain injury at 2;0 and could not develop speech, communicating by means of crude gestures of her own origination. Isabelle and her mother had been locked in a room during the mother’s pregnancy and Isabelle’s childhood of 6 and a half years. Isabelle started to produce speech a week after she and her mother were found (Mason visited them immediately). After only 20 months, Isabelle has progressed from her first spoken word to full length sentences; intellligent ability was observed; very differently from the outcomes with Victor and Genie.

Chelsea: began to learn language at age 32 Misdiagnosed as regarded, not deaf. Began to learn at the age of 32. Thought that she born deaf. Developed an extensive vocabulary. Unlike Genie, though, Chelsea lacked in word order in her sentences (“Banana the eat,” “Combing hair the boy,” etc.)

Hellen Keller, the renowed deaf and blind girl (1880-1969)

Was born normal and, due to illness, Keller became deaf and blind at 19 months of age. She was developing language before she got sick. Anne Sullivan Macy came to teach her language (Macy partly blind). Macy taught Keller through the sense of touch and Keller learned to speak although she could not hear. Keller was able to think and write clearly about her life. Graduated from Radcliffe (Harvard U, currently) with honours. It took Keller a long time to learn her first word ‘water,’ this fact suggesting that her pre-illiness exposure to language was of minimal benefit. (pp. 98-99)

Oxana and Edik Oxana

Oxana -Her parents were alcoholics. -at 3;0 Oxana was left alone outside, crawling into a dog house, and a dog helped her to survive. -behaved like a dog on all fours, mostly barking, hardly able to speak. -At 19 years of age, she could talk in simple sentences, yet having difficulties relating to people. -Like Genie and Victor, Oxana’s develoment seemed to come to a limit without progressing any further. (pp. 99)

Edik Found at 4;0 in a deserted apartment. His mother was an alcoholic, without caring for Edik since he was 2;0. Turned to stray dogs for survival. Language skills and grammar improved, but slowly. At 6;0, his speech was like that of 3;0. His social skills were likely to remain impaired.