She spent most of her days tied naked to her potty chair only able to move her hands and feet. When she made noise, her father would beat her. Her father, mother, and older brother rarely spoke to her. The rare times her father did interact with her, it was to bark or growl. The story of her case soon spread, drawing attention from both the public and the scientific community.
With so much interest in her case, the question became what should be done with her. A team of psychologists and language experts began the process of rehabilitating Genie. Psychologist David Rigler was part of the "Genie team" and he explained the process. She had a quality of somehow connecting with people, which developed more and more but was present, really, from the start. She had a way of reaching out without saying anything, but just somehow by the kind of look in her eyes, and people wanted to do things for her.
Her rehabilitation team also included graduate student Susan Curtiss and psychologist James Kent. Silent, incontinent, and unable to chew, she initially seemed only able to recognize her own name and the word "sorry. After assessing Genie's emotional and cognitive abilities, Kent described her as "the most profoundly damaged child I've ever seen … Genie's life is a wasteland. She soon began to make rapid progression in specific areas, quickly learning how to use the toilet and dress herself.
Over the next few months, she began to experience more developmental progress but remained poor in areas such as language. She enjoyed going out on day trips outside of the hospital and explored her new environment with an intensity that amazed her caregivers and strangers alike.
Curtiss suggested that Genie had a strong ability to communicate nonverbally , often receiving gifts from total strangers who seemed to understand the young girl's powerful need to explore the world around her. Part of the reason why Genie's case fascinated psychologists and linguists so deeply was that it presented a unique opportunity to study a hotly contested debate about language development.
Essentially, it boils down to the age-old nature versus nurture debate. Does genetics or environment play a greater role in developing language? Nativists believe that the capacity for language is innate, while empiricists suggest that it is environmental variables that play a key role. Nativist Noam Chomsky suggested that acquiring language could not be fully explained by learning alone.
Instead, he proposed that children are born with a language acquisition device LAD , an innate ability to understand the principles of language. Once exposed to language, the LAD allows children to learn the language at a remarkable pace.
Linguist Eric Lenneberg suggests that like many other human behaviors, the ability to acquire language is subject to critical periods. A critical period is a limited span of time during which an organism is sensitive to external stimuli and capable of acquiring certain skills. According to Lenneberg, the critical period for language acquisition lasts until around age After the onset of puberty, he argued, the organization of the brain becomes set and no longer able to learn and utilize language in a fully functional manner.
Genie's case presented researchers with a unique opportunity. If given an enriched learning environment, could she overcome her deprived childhood and learn language even though she had missed the critical period?
If she could, it would suggest that the critical period hypothesis of language development was wrong. If she could not, it would indicate that Lenneberg's theory was correct. Despite scoring at the level of a 1-year-old upon her initial assessment, Genie quickly began adding new words to her vocabulary. She started by learning single words and eventually began putting two words together much the way young children do.
Curtiss began to feel that Genie would be fully capable of acquiring language. After a year of treatment, she even started putting three words together occasionally. In children going through normal language development, this stage is followed by what is known as a language explosion.
Children rapidly acquire new words and begin putting them together in novel ways. Unfortunately, this never happened for Genie. Her language abilities remained stuck at this stage and she appeared unable to apply grammatical rules and use language in a meaningful way. At this point, her progress leveled off and her acquisition of new language halted.
While Genie was able to learn some language after puberty, her inability to use grammar which Chomsky suggests is what separates human language from animal communication offers evidence for the critical period hypothesis.
Of course, Genie's case is not so simple. Not only did she miss the critical period for learning language, but she was also horrifically abused.
She was malnourished and deprived of cognitive stimulation for most of her childhood. Researchers were also never able to fully determine if Genie suffered from pre-existing cognitive deficits. As an infant, a pediatrician had identified her as having some type of mental delay. So researchers were left to wonder whether Genie had suffered from cognitive deficits caused by her years of abuse or if she had been born with some degree of mental retardation.
Psychiatrist Jay Shurley helped assess Genie after she was first discovered, and he noted that since situations like hers were so rare, she quickly became the center of a battle between the researchers involved in her case.
Arguments over the research and the course of her treatment soon erupted. Genie occasionally spent the night at the home of Jean Butler, one of her teachers. After an outbreak of measles, Genie was quarantined at her teacher's home. Her curiosity and spirit also enchanted hospital cooks, orderlies and other staff members. Genie showed that lexicon seemed to have no age limit. But grammar, forming words into sentences, proved beyond her, bolstering the view that beyond a certain age, it is simply too late.
The window seems to close, said Curtiss, between five and Genie definitely engaged with the world. She could draw in ways you would know exactly what she was communicating. Yet there was to be no Helen Keller-style breakthrough. On the contrary, by , feuding divided the carers and scientists. Each side accused the other of exploitation. Research funding dried up and Genie was moved to an inadequate foster home. Irene briefly regained custody only to find herself overwhelmed — so Genie went to another foster home, then a series of state institutions under the supervision of social workers who barred access to Curtiss and others.
Russ Rymer, a journalist who detailed the case in the s in two New Yorker articles and a book, Genie: a Scientific Tragedy , painted a bleak portrait of photographs from her 27th birthday party. Her dark hair has been hacked off raggedly at the top of her forehead, giving her the aspect of an asylum inmate. Jay Shurley, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural science who was at that party, and her 29th, told Rymer she was miserable, stooped and seldom made eye contact. But a melancholy thread connects those she left behind.
For the surviving scientists it is regret tinged with anguish. Curtiss, who wrote a book about Genie , and is one of the few researchers to emerge creditably from the saga, feels grief-stricken to this day. They never let me have any contact with her. I long to see her. This took over my life, my worldview. A lot about this case left me shaken. Maybe this is cowardice — I was relieved to be able to turn away from the story. Because anytime I went into that room [where Genie grew up], it was unbearable.
But Rymer discovered he could not turn away, not fully. But I had to confront how much I identified with Genie. Being shut up, unable to express herself, I think that speaks to everyone. I think the person I was writing about was to some extent myself.
Genie infiltrated his recent novel, Paris Twilight, set in France in , said Rymer. Maybe I failed him. After brushes with the law, John settled in Ohio and worked as a housepainter.
He married and had a daughter, Pamela. There would be no miracle turnaround, no happy ending. John, who had diabetes, died in Pamela, who apparently never met her aunt Genie, died in Some researchers, like Shirley, thought this suggested she experienced brain damage at birth.
Others, however, like Curtiss, refused to accept that theory. Throughout Genie's testing though, she showed improvement. Mentally challenged children and adults don't. James Kent, another researcher on Genie's team, thought her condition would improve if she could form meaningful relationships with people. He began feeding her breakfast in the morning and tucking her in at night with a story and a kiss. But "doctors aren't supposed to love their patients," he said.
Initially, Genie didn't respond to his efforts. Then, one day, Genie frowned and pulled Kent's arm when he tried to leave. She didn't want him to go. Genie's first, real breakthrough came during a session with language teacher Jean Butler. Jean said to Genie, "You [tie your shoe] and then we can tell Doctor Kent what you can do.
The question became: Could Genie fully recover? Genie had her first birthday after being found — her 14th — at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Over the course of her therapy, Genie's timid nature morphed into a natural inquisitiveness about the world around her. Going anywhere became a fascinating, new adventure.
Rigler recalled one instance where, without a word, a little boy gave Genie his brand new firetruck. The two had only passed each other on the street. Eventually, Genie went to live with Butler. Her rehabilitation team thought a stable foster home would help. She developed a passion for hording items, especially glasses and containers — behavior exhibited by many other severely abused children. But Butler, concerned all the testing and research hurt Genie's well-being, began to restrict the other team member's access to her.
Others, like Curtiss, thought Butler was using Genie to become famous. Eventually, child services removed Genie from Butler's house. After only a few hours at Children's Hospital, she was placed with a new foster home with David Rigler, the chief psychologist at Children's Hospital. Doctors almost never undertake the role of parent too, but the team was desperate to find a stable home for Genie.
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