A Critique on

Story of Genie: Feral Child

After reading the story of this child, I never did thought that the abused she had

experienced in her life was coming from her very own family. It’s really sad knowing

that her very own parents including her brother was the one causing her sufferings. As

she was deprived of talking to anybody, being naked and tied most of the time to a

potty chair and human interaction is much limited as compared to other children who

have a normal childhood experience because other parents would normally allow their

children mingle with other children for them to develop their cognition and language

acquisition then, later on in their life, would gradually improved their grammar and be

able to use their acquired language into a more meaningful way of conveying

messages.

But in the case of this Genie, as she is known to be called in her case files, she

was isolated and very limited interaction was given to her by her father, as she would

be beaten if she makes a noise, her father would rarely interact with her by barking or

growling only, and when her mother tries to check on her and even gave her extra

food, eventually the father would get angry and hardly beat her wife. Luckily, she was

rescued by a Social Worker on November 1970 when she was already 13 years and 7

months old.

Much attention has drawn upon her case, coming from both the public and the

scientific community, making her a research interest between the Psychologists and

Linguists. Linguists saw an opportunity to gain further insight into controlling language

acquisition skills, to test theories and hypothesis identifying critical periods during of

which period, does a human learn and understand language. She made substantial
advances on her overall mental and psychological development, developed exceptional

non-verbal communication skills and learned some basic social skills, but still exhibited

distinct behavioural trait characteristic of unsocialized person. She was sent into many

institutions for disabled adults, cut her off from everyone she knew and subjected her

into extreme physical and emotional abuse, resulted into physical and mental

deterioration, language and behavioural skills rapidly regressed.

The bottom-line in here goes to the very old issue about ‘nature versus

nurture debate’, if genetics or environment play a greater role in developing language.

If given an enriched learning environment, could Genie overcome her deprived

childhood and learn language even though she had missed the critical period of learning

language. As mentioned from the story, a Psycholinguist and Author Harlan Lee said,

and I quote that “our morality doesn’t allow us to conduct deprivation experiments with

human beings; these unfortunate people are all we have to go on”. With this statement,

I therefore conclude, that the scientific research done on her being the primary subject

have hampered the treatment she could have had received, and for those coming

generations who wants to explore more of her case, our focus should not only be about

the human development but more importantly, about the lessons we could get from the

risks and rewards of conducting ‘forbidden experiments’.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s Case

To be honest, I really felt frightened upon listening to his testimonials, as to how

he pre-plans the killing of his victims, how he executes the killing and how he reasons

out justifying his actions. As he was known to be a convicted Milwaukee cannibal, a

serial killer and sex offender, who murdered 17 men and boys - most of whom were of

African or Asian descent - between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders

occurring between 1987 and 1991. He became obsessed with bones as he was

fascinated by the sounds made by the bones and began to develop his fixation of

collecting and playing with bones and unknowingly his father taught him how to

preserve his victims because at 8 years old, Dahmer expressed his scientific curiosity to

his father as to how to bleach the bones of the chicken, then his father, being a

Chemist and proud of his son’s curiosity showed him how to bleach safely the chicken

and preserve the bones. Collecting dead animals and keeping the carcasses inside the

jar was also one of his habits in his childhood. He also became alcoholic in his high

school days. It has been mentioned that by the time, he was indicted by his crimes,

during his trial, he was found to be legally sane and was fully aware of what he was

doing when he did the killings, even though he was diagnosed with borderline

personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder.

In my analysis, he was profoundly, a child neglect .Emotionally neglected by his

parents, especially when the time his parents got divorced and his very own mother left

him in his father’s shelter taking only his little brother with her. Although, it has been

stated that even at his younger age, his father was always busy working or studying

and away from home while his mother became depressed as she was attention

deprived in their marriage. It should be understood that childhood neglect is one of

child, along with genetic and environmental influences effect the

development of the child’s brain. Additionally, I have learned that her mother

also had difficulty during her pregnancy with Jeffrey as she was suffering from  nervous

seizures and extreme sensitivity to noise, sometimes taking as many as twenty six pills

a day of Miltown to relieve her symptoms. After giving birth, she also suffered

postpartum depression and in the mind of Dahmer, her mother suffered this illness due

to him. Having a mother who was a drug abuser during her pregnancy and

during Dahmer’s childhood, for sure he has been exposed to it, if he has

been breastfed by his mother, the said drug passes into breast milk, and

ultimately, it has become a critical risk factor for the healthy development

of a young child. Constant tension also happens in their house combined

with verbal abuse, therefore, mentioning all the factors herein, greatly

contributed to his development, giving   the most toxic combination for negative

outcomes in Dahmer’s life.  

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