Geniie Secret Of The Wild Child Analysis

The documentary of Genie: Secret of the Wild Child described the inhumane living conditions that Genie experienced for her first 13 years of life. She had been severely neglected by her parents, specially her dad who obligated the mom and the rest of the family to ignore Genie for several years. Consequently, she lived in a room with the windows closed; she was incarcerated and strapped to a potty chair. Furthermore, she was not given any nutritious food for her to acquire the proper nutrients for her development. When Genie was rescued she was found using dippers, she was unable to walk, and she could not speak due to undeveloped verbal skills. Genie had little or no contact with other people while she was with her biological parents (Levine …show more content…
The Nativism theory proposes the idea that humans are born pre-programmed to learn language, it is something biological and all children have the capacity to learn language. This capacity is triggered by hearing spoken language from their caregivers (Levine and Munsch p.195). On the film it was demonstrated that Genie was able to repeat words that she heard from others. However in Genie’s case, even after she was rescued and she was taught how to speak, she couldn’t speak proper sentences and lacked grammar reasoning. Another theory that aims to explain language acquisition is the Behaviorism/ Social learning theory which brings the idea that language is developed through environmental influence, and by the reinforcement to the baby’s babbling ( Levine and Munsch p.195). For example children are able to learn words and their meanings by being exposed to the environment, and the constant teaching of parents or knowledgeable adults. The lady that was teaching her language used symbolic figures that represented the meaning of the words that she was teaching Genie. On the other hand, Genie was not able to acquire proper language because the only environment she knew for a long time was a dark room and she did not have any kind of …show more content…
When Genie’s case gained popularity it seemed that they did not know how to handle the situation, or what type of procedures to follow. In Genie’s case there were many parties involved and it seem that they wanted to take credit for Genie’s progress. However, there were some participants who actually felt attachment and cared for Genie. Genie was stressed about the number of people coming and going out of her life. We have learned that in this type of circumstances it is best to have few people around the child in order for the child to develop healthy attachment styles. In the end it will be a hard to divide the risks and the rewards of performing a research and treatment on a wild child. It is important for parents and caregivers to understand that there are critical periods in the life of a child, where there can be devastating results if their brain doesn’t learn the skills, at an appropriate time of their