Genie Case Study

In her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs presents her audience with an honest inside view of her life and perspective as a cripple, a word she openly uses to define herself. She brings her world to us by discussing a wide variety of things including language, family, and humor, and how these all relate to her life. Through various stories and insights, she allows her readers to gain an understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities. She examines the public’s view of the disabled, as well as the views they have of themselves, and compares them to her own. She makes it clear that she is not to be defined solely by her disability. In discussing honestly her views, as well as

The Alice Saddy Caring for the Community a non-profit agency located in London, Ontario, was established to support individuals with developmental disabilities by assisting them to live independently rather than an in a group home. Via various programs and services offered by the association, they provided opportunities for individual with developmental disabilities to become active, “contributing members of the community”. As a nonprofit, community-based organization, the Alice Saddy Association is committed to promoting independence and building an inclusive community where all individuals with disabilities can lead full and gratifying lives.

When my older sister, Molly, was ten years old, she was a temporary cripple. Molly went through a pretty big surgery that would stop her from tripping over her pigeon toed legs. While living a couple months in her wheelchair, an uncle of ours came to visit. His warm welcome to my sister was pushing her into a corner, locking her wheelchair, and calling her a windowlicker. Thankfully, my sister has tough skin. She took what others would find scarring, all as a joke. It is hard not to be reminded of the unexpected response my sister gave while reading the essay “I AM a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs. Within this essay, the author describes her life as a cripple suffering with MS. While sharing her thoughts and emotions (gerund) from

* The girl was given the name Genie to protect her identity and privacy. "The case name is Genie. This is not the person's real name, but when we think about what a genie is, a genie is a creature that comes out of a bottle or whatever, but emerges into human society past childhood. We assume that it really isn't a creature that had a human childhood,” explained Susan Curtiss in a documentary called Secrets of the Wild Child (1997).

The moment she got trampled under the stomps and shoves of others, one could identify what she’d been feeling like previously - a witness to her own inconvenience. This incident not only exemplifies but also symbolizes the burden she feels having been born handicapped, unable to provide assistance or gain to the world. These feelings Adahs has for her life are later rebutted by her longstanding dreams of attending medical school and improving science. By achieving her academic potential, she finally recognized herself as an important asset to the world- no longer being seen as handicapped, physically or mentally.

Lost in a Desert World relays the story of the life of Roland Johnson, a man born with an intellectual disability and placed in an institution who eventually went on to be the president of Speaking for Ourselves, a group that encourages those with disabilities to stand up for themselves and their rights. This memoir offers a rare first-person, nonfiction account of the life and experiences of someone with an intellectual disability. Though filled with the harsh realities of the treatment of those with intellectual disabilities, the book is also one of passion, strength, and hope.

People with disabilities are not completely gone. They are still there and have a mind of their own. They feel emotions and sometimes have a more complex mind than others. Two authors help enlighten this idea that disabled people are much more than helpless bodies. Both Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby perfectly illustrate their lives and what it is like to be disabled, and they prove by their stories that they think and feel, and can even develop enough to share what they feel with the world. My Left Foot is about the journey of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. His entire life he was labeled as a loss cause by doctor after doctor, but his mom never gave up hope. Slowly, he started showing signs of development by random movements responding to certain situations. In the end he ends up being able to communicate with his left foot. The next story, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is about an individual who suffered a stroke at the age of 43, leaving him paralyzed, only able to blink his left eye as communication. He develops his own alphabet inspired by the French language in order to exchange conversations with others. His thoughts in the story jump from the present, him currently disabled, and the past, when he was not. Both memoirs, with very different stories, show the lives of two individuals that are not like others. One who had their disability since birth, and the other who obtained one after a tragic event. In My Left Foot by Christy Brown and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, both authors use characterization to show readers the struggles of disabled people and help them understand that just because they can’t use motions such as hand gestures to express how they feel, doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel.

For example, Genie Wiley, whom is the child who was locked up and tied to a toileting chair in a room on her own for 13 years as her father believed she had a disability. This act of isolation has had a detrimental effect on her development. When Genie was found she was unable to walk properly, was unable to eat solid food and could not talk, this was believed to be because indications showed

She explains how in addition to studying she teaches writing courses, teaches medical students, and she picks up freelance editing jobs, in her free time. She also explains how she does motherly things, like raising a foster child, cooking for her family, and doing laundry. She addresses her context in this by explaining that being crippled does not stop her from doing the normal things that non-crippled people do. This appeals to her audience because she is explaining that just because she is crippled, that does not stop her from doing everyday things that non-crippled people

Language is a power tool for Darl, Dewey Dell, and Cash but for their mother Addie it is a limitation. She says, “words don’t ever fit even what they are trying to say at.” Addie believes that language is the experience and words will never match that. While the children feel defined by their language, she feels defined by experiences. She makes this clear when she describes a scene with Cora Tull, “And so when Cora Tull would tell me I was not a true mother, I would think how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth.”

After Genie was rescued at the age of 13, she was part of a study on brain development. Scientist and therapists helped to teach Genie how to speak. Genie learnt lots of words, but because she was cognitively deficient, she was unable to make up sentences, and didn’t have any sense of grammar. On Genie’s 18th Birthday, she moved back in with her mother, in the house that she was isolated and neglected in. But after only a few weeks, it became clear that her mother could not cope. Therefore, Genie was moved into state care, with terrible consequences. Those consequences were that Genie was moved from house to house, who were mainly the therapists she worked with, and then she deteriorated. The scientists who had worked with her, tried to warn the state, and tried to inform them that she needed comfort and attention, as this is what she laced while growing up, but they did not listen, which resulted in Genie

She shares her story by first defining how she thinks of herself. Nancy states, “I want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger” (Nancy Mairs 245). Next, she then defines the disability itself as a chronic degenerative disease that attacks the central nervous system, Multiple Sclerosis. Nancy clearly lists the symptoms as, “the loss of vision, hearing, speech, the ability to walk, control of bladder and/or bowels, strength in any or all extremities, sensitivity to touch, vibration and/or pain, potency, coordination of movements; the list of possibilities is lengthy and, yes, horrifying”

Genie is a wild child who found in LA on 1970, she is a very extreme case of neglected the caretaking from adult. Her father believed she is retarder She spent her first thirteen years on tiding at the potty chair and still wearing diaper, she had never see, listen, being taught of anything in her life. For the past many years she had been isolation and lack of adult care make her the way she is right now.

Lucy Grealy tells a story about not fitting in, unbearable pain that takes up residence in one’s head as loneliness and confusion, questioning what things mean, being scared and lost in your family, enduring intense physical pain, and most importantly, figuring out who you are. Lucy had no idea she might die, even though the survival rate for Ewing’s sarcoma was only five percent. She does not present her parents as overly afraid for her life, either. Her autobiography is not a story about the fear of death, but about such courage and anguish. Lucy shows how she falls under the spell of her disability, allowing it to control her life and dictate her future to a greater extent than it would otherwise. Having a disability means that

Genie was hence removed from Rigler’s care and she was sent to her birth mother who found it too difficult to handle her and hence Genie was moved from one foster home to the other. This period was the beginning of an end for Genie as she was abused regularly.