Genie Case

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* 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.

First, children¡¯s acquisition of language is an innate mechanism that enables a child to analyze language and extract the basic rules of grammar, granted by Chomsky. It basically states that humans are born with a language acquisition device that, the ability to learn a language rapidly as children. However, there is one important controversy in language acquisition concerns how we acquire language; since Chomsky fails to adequately explain individual differences. From the behaviorists¡¯ perspectives, the language is learned like other learned behaviors. It is learned through operant

There was sadness and wrong-doing on so many levels, yet this rare forbidden case study of child development and language was one that helped further our knowledge on the subject. Straddling the line between caretaker and therapist proved to be a tough job for all the professionals involved in Genie’s case. On one hand, Genie deserved to be genuinely nurtured and cared for by someone that was separate from the scientific experiments being conducted. On the other hand, she needed scientists and therapists who were dedicated to studying her behavioral growth patterns without having her become so dependent on them. That would be the case in a perfect world, but the reality is things are hardly ever even close to being perfect. And Genie’s story was no

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Russ Rymer manages to blend science and literature and philosophy expertly, so that the book GENIE: A Scientific Tragedy sort of defies genre. With any kind of encounter of Genie’s case by reading this book, videos anything it is very unlikely that anyone with forget about. I’ve watched the video and read this book, Rymer‘s book isn’t much about the horrors of the abuse it’s more about the forbidden experiment. The question if a child was raised in complete isolation, with any human contact, would that child acquire a language, if so what kind of language? That topic was the major focus on this case.

This child 's situation, although terribly inhumane and unfathomable, would become a living, breathing experiment that humanity would never dare to intentionally replicate because of the negative residual effects that would haunt such a test subject for the rest of their natural life. The horrid upbringing that this child was forced to endure was an opportunity unlike any other (McMahan, 2014). Many fields of study could have been named the main scientific focus in Genie 's case, but it was finally decided upon that linguistics would take the lead above all others (Newton, 2004). Although the sociological perspective was not a priority, it would be a mistake to not recognize the importance of the information contributed to sociology by Genie 's history and rehabilitation. Genie put the three major sociological theories brought to light by Durkheim, Marx and Weber to the test and challenged their very principles. The information provided by the observations and documentation were more than enough to conduct a real life comparison to the theories while providing sociologists with a fresh perspective.

Conversing is to talk and mingle with others. Socializing does not necessarily indicate conversation, but within spoken word is what the hoi polloi thinks of when they hear ‘let’s socialize with the other members.’ Language acquisition is a crucial structure in social psychology; however, before the discovery and subsequent study of a young girl, known pseudonymously as Genie, the field of study had little development. Genie spent the first thirteen years of her life as ice. Ignored, spurned, and utterly isolated by her parents, Genie could not talk because she was never taught.

Doctors and researchers took advantage of and exploited Genie’s situation. At first the professionals were mesmerized by her situation and wanted to know more about her case. Doctors came from all over the country to exam Genie to make a name for themselves. She was used for research on cognitive development and speech development. But she was being over tested because the doctors and researchers wanted fast results. They tested her to the point that they stopped video recording the testings. They would visit her at all times. Genie was also abused by her foster parents and caretakers. One family that she lived with punished her for vomiting and Genie speech never recovered after that incident.

The case of “Genie” is a tragic look at the effects of child abuse and neglect on childhood development. Genie’s case was particularly extreme, as she lived the first 13 years of her life in isolation and confinement. With little to no human interaction throughout her entire life, she developed no language skills. Researchers were extremely interested in this case, as it gave them a chance to explore two theories of language development. One theory is Noam Chomsky’s view that children are born with an innate ability to learn and understand language. Chomsky termed this structure in our brain the “Language Acquisition Device” (LAD). An alternate theory by Eric Lenneberg stated that language development is a result of our environment, and stressed the importance of critical periods. Lenneberg believed that the critical period for language development only lasted until around 12 years of age, and inability to develop language during these critical periods would result in major deficits.

and “Could Genie fully recover?” Because it would be highly unethical to deprive someone from learning a language during “the critical period”, Genie’s infant-like mind would provide the perfect opportunity to test hypotheses in order to provide more direct evidence. My hypothesis for the result of Genie’s case is her lack of nurturing and a stimulating environment created an almost chain reaction of factors causing her overall condition. One of the main subjects of developmental psychology is “nature and nurture” and “environmental influences” which may serve as a basis for various psychological,

However, it can be argued with (Bruner 1964) that social interaction doesn’t explain all the complexities of language acquisition. Almost every day the language we hear is often incorrect, poorly defined, incomplete and full of hesitations, mispronunciations and other errors, and yet despite this we still learn to talk following the correct grammatical rules. Again this indicates the idea of Chomsky’s (1968) LAD model that children are born ‘hard-wired’ with the innate knowledge of linguistic rules and so these rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing. From these estimations and presumption the child can work out grammatical sets of rules and when more language is exposed to them, the more their language develops. Even within Chomsky’s (1968) LAD theory, undoubtedly he believed the role and promotion of the ‘nature’ aspect is the core foundation on which language can develop. But his theory also requires the role of nurture

Genie lived the beginning of her life with no social contact as explored within Nova documentary Genie: Secret of the Wild Child (1997). From her life experiences we are able to draw that without any social contact, humans are unable to experience socialization. In order to fully dissect this case we must think about this issue we must find how individual experiences and the larger society affect each other, or as J.J. Macionis defines it in his book Society: The Basics (2017), social imagination. In Genie’s case, we saw a lack of ability when attempting to learn language due to the result of having no social contact throughout her life. When she attempted to speak English, she was fully able to use vocabulary as well as anyone of her mental

There are several theories regarding language development. Work by Chomsky, Piaget and Kuhl are critical. Studies by Chomsky, as examined by Albery, Chandler, Field, Jones, Messer, Moore and Sterling (2009); Deloache, Eisenberg & Siegler (2003) argued for the innateness of language acquisition due to its complexity. Development is assisted by a language acquisition device (LAD) and universal grammar both of which holding the propensity for commonalities throughout all languages. LAD is the key to the Syntax rule. The knowledge to master the rules is held unconsciously. Chomsky concludes exposure through auditory channels as being the only requirement for learning. Arguably Kuhl (2010) writes infantile exposure to language through auditory channels only, does not contribute effectively to learning indicating the importance of human interaction. Piaget, as discussed by Ault (1977) postulated language as not being part of the earliest stages of development. Signifying within sensorimotor stage, between birth and two years, the child’s development is too reflexive. Gleitman, Fridlund and Reisberg (2004) discuss the critical period hypothesis and suggest the young brain being more suited to acquisition than the adult brain. Lenneberg (1967) (as cited in Gleitman et al 2004) advocates, brain maturation closes language acquisition capacity window. Kuhl (2010) identified, within the critical period babies develop

According to Zukowski (2013), language development refers to the process of learning in early life where infants acquire various forms, meaning and word usage. In addition, language refers to the different utterances in regards to linguistic input. Language development in childhood focuses on major arguments in