Feral Kids

Present one case of child isolation.

          Isabelle (born in 1932), who was six years old at the time she was found by the authorities could not talk and was only able to produce croaking sounds. This was largely caused by the way she was kept isolated from the rest of the world. Though not entirely solitary, her only companion inside the unlit room was her deaf-mute, brain-damaged mother. According to the records, since the day she was born until she was barely six years old, she and her mom spent their time together in a dark room where the blinds are kept drawn. There was a very minimal contact with other people and no one ever spoke to her. Isabelle was then limited to a sort of “personal system of gesture” to communicate with her mother. It was said that Isabelle was an illegitimate child, and for this reason was locked up by his grandfather.  After six years of isolation, the mother was able to escape bringing Isabelle with her. And that’s when the authorities’ attention was drawn to Isabelle as another case of feral children.

          “Feral” by definition means existing in the wild or untamed state. There are different sequences of events that cause such cases like children abandoned or lost in the wild, eventually adopted by animals as if they were their own or purposely confined and cut-off from the civility of men. These children have spent their formative years in a rather “untouched” manner, meaning there were no external influences that help them develop as “humans” at least according to the conventional definition of what is to be considered human. There was a common misconception that feral case is synonymous to autism or retardation. However, as a result of the advancement of science, researchers and specialists have come to realize and prove that these cases are practically different from each other.

Isabelle’s story is just one of the many recorded cases of feral children found in the wild or rescued from a horrific confinement. Most of these children exhibited a rather uniform behavior and characteristics such as the inability to develop language or to at least clearly express themselves. They are usually limited to sounds that resemble those of a wild animal, if not unintelligible gabble of sounds. But unlike most of the feral children cases, Isabelle’s story is a rather successful one.

          Isabelle was severely retarded due to her inhumane confinement. As a result of lack of proper and healthy growing environment, she didn’t develop in should we say, a normal way. Her growth was severely stunted both physically and intellectually. Also, she reacted in a rather violent manner when approached by other people. When the experts measured her intelligence at the age of six years old and a half, they found out that her intelligence is like that of a nineteen month old and the words coming out of her mouth cannot be classified as a normal kind of speech. Isabelle however underwent an intensive training with the doctors, psychologists and other experts who put her in a stimulating environment, thus making her language acquisition develop in such a rapid manner.

Isabelle went through the usual stages of learning characteristics of the years from one to six not only in proper succession but far more rapidly than normal. In a little over two months after her first vocalization she was putting sentences together. Nine months after that she could identify words and sentences on the printed page, could write well, could add to ten and could retell a story after hearing it. Seven months beyond this point she had a vocabulary of 1500-2000 words and was asking complicated questions. www.feralchildren.com

          She was considered a normal child at the age of 8. She gradually learned to speak and more remarkably, was able to be reintegrated again to society.

There are several reasons that affected the end result of the study and reintegration program of Isabelle. Eric Lenneberg stated that “the crucial period of language acquisition ends around the age of 12 years and that if no language is learned before then, it could never be learned in a normal and fully functional sense (better known as the Critical Period hypothesis).” To give a concrete example of this theory, let us then compare the cases of Genie and Isabelle. Both girls were reportedly able to develop language with the help of a team of professionals. However, there is quite a big difference on the level of their language development or better yet, language acquisition. Genie never learned to produce more than telegraphic speech while Isabelle mastered grammar within a year and even attended school like most other children of her age. This was largely a result of the period or age they started learning language. Genie was isolated until the age of thirteen and a half. Isabelle on the other hand was found when she was six years old. This strengthens the theory that claims that the  acquisition of language by the age of seven has been proven to yield native command but if the language was not introduced between the ages 8-15, it yields progressively less perfect command (Lenneberg:1932).

          Like most of the well-publicized cases of feral children, Isabelle had undergone a series of tests and training. Unlike other normal kids, these feral children required special attention for them to be able to develop or acquire language. This further questions the issue on Nurture vs. Nature or Rousseau’s concept on humans being innately wise and generous. Surely, Isabelle’s cases had disproved and prove some of the theories in the acquisition of language. But one thing is for certain, that education is indeed very necessary for the development of human language. Learning is a necessity for humans to survive and without it we would then be no more than bipedal animal.