Vygotsky believed that social interaction was imperative in the development of cognition. Genie the feral child was locked away for most of her life. When she was found in 1970 at the age of 13 by a social worker, she had been chained to a potty chair, still wore diapers, she had a "bunny" like walk and often clawed and spit at herself. Her father believed that she was retarded and resorted to locking her up in seclusion. When found she was only able to say "stop it", "no", "no more" and a few other angry words. The greatest harm done to Genie is that the first years of her life was spent in total seclusion, she was very unaware of the world outside her room, because of this, she had delayed speech, and wild animal- like behavior. Vygotsky's
