Genie : Effects Of Child Abuse And Neglect On Child Development

Nature and nurture both play a significant role in language development. Language development refers to how children understand, organise, speak and use words in order to communicate at an effective, age-appropriate level (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). For centuries, theorists have been debating the roles of nature versus nurture. Although, each child’s language will develop at their own pace and there will be many individual differences based on culture, ethnicity, health and ability. As well as physical, social, emotional and cognitive development in which will contribute to a child’s language development.

* However there were other factors to consider in Genie’s case. Not only did she miss the critical period for learning language, she was also horrifically abused. She was malnourished and deprived of cognitive stimulation for most of her childhood. Researchers were

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

“Genie” Wiley was born into a horrible home, receiving absolutely no love or nurture from her parents since they deemed her mentally challenged. Without being properly diagnosed, her parents simply decided to neglect Genie keeping her isolated and locked in her room with no social interaction. Tied to a child’s potty chair until the age of thirteen, she was eventually found by social services but clearly showed signs of severe abuse and developmental problems. Genie could not walk or talk and had to be taken into the custody of the state where Children’s Hospital began treatment and scientific studies on her.

On November 4th 1970, Los Angeles child welfare authorities became aware of the abuse, neglect, and social isolation of Susan “Genie” Wiley. Upon farther investigation, they discovered that Susan, a thirteen-year-old, had been severely maltreated by her father. Susan’s father came to a conclusion early in her life that she was socially unfit or “retarded’ and was ashamed of her. He hid her in the back bedroom of the Wiley home and kept her from neighbors, family, and friends. Thus leaving Susan unable to develop language skills learned from communicating and interacting with other people. She was taking away from her home and placed in the care of the state. Scientist and Psychologist took this as an opportunity to test hypotheses and theories on language acquisition skills. Susan learned gradually, but because she was not exposed to early childhood language skills, she was not able to retain the information permanently. Even today in her late fifties, she is ward of the state in California and has limited verbal skills.

Windsor et al. stipulate that the main idea for their study is the language abilities of children. Their specific target group are children who have been raised in a Romanian orphanage. They use this specific sample group due to the attention they have received from Romania’s “historical” physical and social deprivation (2007, p. 1366). Based on their literature review, Windsor et al. point

The Genie´s case is about a girlwho lived thirteen years of her life isolated from the world, without interacting with people, without having any contact with the outside. When they found her she still wore diapers and only emitted sounds like a baby, she didn't have the ability to walk or even to speak, also she hadn't developed

This paper will investigate the abuse of children and some of the ways which young children are affected developmentally. I will try and present an overview of the major types of abuse but my big focus and most of my research has been to cover sexual abuse and its effect on development in young children and how it can affect brain development.

In 1970, the case of Genie emerged, an abused child was mentally and physically delayed due to the social isolation condition she was raised. Genie’s case is studied and analyzed by many different aspects, such as phonology, semantics, morphology, and other research areas. Victoria Fromkin’s article “The Development of Language in Genie: A case of Language Acquisition Beyong the “Critical Period”” analyzed Genie’s case from five major aspects, which include linguistic comprehension, speech production and phonological development, sentence structure, cognitive development, and linguistic development in relation to normals. His analysis helps us to understand the language learning process and how the environment plays an important of language learning.

The world became intrigued and fascinated with the discovery of the feral child who goes by the pseudonym, Genie. For the first thirteen years of her existence, she was bound to a potty chair or her crib the majority of the time. She was the epitome of a “wild child”, one that exuded beauty, delicacy, and curiosity. The small child suffered immensely at the hands of her own father, as he isolated and abused her since the tender age of two. Genie was deprived of food and was not allowed to make any noise. Making any noise or sound would result in her father severely striking her. In addition, her mother and brother were not permitted to speak to her. Essentially, Genie lived in a secluded, dark room with no one to socialize with. With her tragic story coming to light, Genie would soon be known widely.

Sara spoke her first words “ma ma” at an early age of 9 ½ months. By 12 months she was adding words to her vocabulary with about 10 to 15 words that she would repeat. Sara spent most of her first six weeks of life solely with her mother and then the rest of her newborn development with a female day care provider, which could have played a part in the use of “ma ma” as her first words. Especially when taking into account that Sara would often call her mother and the daycare provider “ma ma.” Noam Chomsky ideas on the innate characteristics of language, are also supported with Sara’s development; her rate of language development was consistent with average newborns and the words she used showed that she was innately able to learn the language that she was exposed to.

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 spent practically her entire childhood locked in a room, isolated, and abused for more than ten years. Genie's case was one of the first cases that got to test the critical period theory of Lenneberg. Chomsky suggested that language development is driven by biology and the innate understanding of grammar. He proposed that the innate understanding of grammar is driven by a language acquisition device (LAD) that children are born with. The LAD allows for the ability to detect certain language categories like phonology, syntax, and semantics. Once exposed to language, the LAD allows children to learn the language at a exceptional pace. However, Lenneberg suggests that the ability to acquire language relies on his idea of a “critical period”.

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

From a baby 's first word to their first complete sentence, there 's a lot to debate with their language development. The average child has a vocabulary of up to six-thousand words by the time they turn five years old (Brighthubcom, 2016). Language development is one of the most critical roles for an educator in both early childhood and primary settings. It is this ability of language development that is particularly interesting in the nature vs nurture debate. In order for educators to provide effective communication, it is important that they have the knowledge and understanding of the four key concepts of language, such as phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic development and the underlying theoretical perspectives that explain the processes of language acquisition and development.