1. Genie Haley Schaefer

2. Clark (Genie’s Father)  Grew up in foster homes and orphanages  Worked in the aircraft assembly lines in Santa Monica  Was extremely upset when his mother died  He became extremely depressed and isolated

3. Irene (Genie’s mother)  Had a stable home  Often left to family friends to be taken care of  Closer to her father  Almost completely blind

4. Children  First pregnancy  Baby lost at 2 and a half months  Second pregnancy  Baby died soon after birth due to Rh blood poisoning  Third pregnancy  Produced a healthy son ‘John Wiley’ who survived infancy  Fourth pregnancy  Susan ‘Genie’ Wiley

5. Clark’s mother dies  Clark moves the family into her two bedroom home in Temple City, California  Clark appointed himself guardian of his family  Convinced that Genie was “retarded”  Thought she needed to be protected from the evil of the world

6. Genie’s Room  She was harnessed to an infant’s potty seat and left to sit there  At night she was placed in a the crib with mesh sides and cover overhead

7. Genie’s Diet  Baby foods  Cereals  An occasional soft-boiled egg  For fear of too much contact she was fed hurriedly, usually having the food stuffed into her mouth

8. Genie Discovered  November 4, 1970  13 ½ years old  59 lbs  54” tall  Incontinent  Could not hop, skip, climb, or do anything requiring the full extension of her limbs  Could not talk

9. Admission to the hospital  Tests done by James Kent  An expert in child abuse  Found:  All her dexterity was in her fingertips  Motor skills of a 2 year old  Made good eye contact  Attentive to sounds

10. Chomsky and language  “Language is a tool”  Children early on respond to rules so arcane that adults rarely invoke them  Understand that verbs are divided into classes  Directly vs. Balistically  Know that irregular plurals can be used to make compound words but regular plurals cannot

11. Optional Studies  Fromkin  Interest in the cognitive area  Shurley  Suggested putting her back into a highly restricted environment and removing her slowly and gradually

12. Genie’s Development  Began almost immediately  Starting to turn some anger outward, aiming it more at a source of frustration  Vocabulary increased  She could understand more than she could produce  Gaining a years worth of development every few months  Showed a developmental “scatter”

13. David Rigler  Professor of pediatrics and psychology at the University of Southern California  Chief psychologist at the hospital that Genie was admitted to, in the psychiatry division  Became the primary doctor on Genie’s case  Got a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for $21,500  February 1971

14. Grant decision time  May of 1971  Shurley’s sleep study results  May indicate mental retardation  Rigler made his decision  The primary focus would be on language

15. Susan Curtiss  Summer of 1971- Started recording everything Genie said to keep track of progress  Began taking her on excursions  “Genie was the most powerful nonverbal communicator I’ve ever come across”

16. Jean Butler  June 1971- Genie was granted the ability to go on field trips to Jean’s home  Came down with Rubella  Genie was exposed  No humane way to isolate her  July 7 th Genie moves in with Jean

17. Living with Butler  Uninhibited by any concept of modesty  Getting potty trained while getting her period at the same time  Tremendous Progress  Incontinent 30/37 nights  Masturbation declined  Speech increased  Butler applied to be her foster mother

18. Dr. Rigler’s letter to Butler  Said she wasn’t cooperating as a “trainee”  Mailed her a letter  This child is not for sale  Extraordinary demands  Four days later, Butler received news that she was rejected as a foster parent

19. David and Marilyn Rigler  August 13, 1971- Genie moved in with her new foster parents  Laughlin Park  Had 3 adolescent children, a cat, and a golden retriever puppy

20. Living with the Rigler’s  Enrolled in a nursery school  Then a public school for the mentally retarded  Was given speech therapy and taught sign language  Around the house:  Ironing, sewing, and drawing

21. Revelations of her father  Constantly afraid he would come back  ‘Father hit’  Worst revelation- wolf photograph  Interviewed Irene  Clark use to bark and growl at Genie

22. Irene is released  Irene begins to visit Genie  The scientist fought to keep Irene out of jail  David and Marilyn Rigler sometimes drove Genie to temple City to visit with her mother

23. John Miner  Was a lawyer in Irene’s case to keep her out of jail  Became Genie’s legal guardian  “His interest is motivated by his desire to safeguard Genie’s part of her fathers estate.”

24. False advertisement  Genie’s progress was also being watched by Jean Butler  Rigler said she was acting appropriately in social situation when she was not  Rigler’s claimed she was unable to dress herself  Reset her progress to hide her decline

25. Genie goes home to Irene  Goes to the house in Temple City  Right where the bulk of the painful childhood happened  It didn’t last long  Irene contacted the East Los Angeles Regional Center for the Developmentally disabled

26. Foster home to Foster home  Came bearing a large collection of plastic objects  Genie’s reaction to the change was to regress  Curtiss was the only one that visited  Noticed that Genie was in an abusive home  Moved to a new home where she began to improve

27. Genie’s language  Quickly developed vocabulary  Communicative person  Never mastered the rules of grammar

28. Genie Today  Very little is known about her present condition  Living in an adult- care home somewhere in Southern California  Speaks in sign language  She is Happy

29. Discussion Questions???  Do you think Genie was used more as an experiment?  Who do you think is most to blame for Genie’s mistreatment after she was discovered?  How could we solve this today, to ensure it doesn’t happen again?