The Exploitation Of Genie's Case

As a child I grew up in the foster care system. My formative years consisted of uncertainty and confusion since I was not able to express myself effectively to the state assigned child advocates. During my time in foster care I volunteered to care for the younger children who had special needs. As I began to care for the children especially with neurological brain damage I became intrigued by how little science seemed to know about Special Education or effective treatment. At the age of eleven I started reading peer-reviewed articles such as Neurology journal and Exceptional Children (EC) trying to adsorb everything science related that would provide answers. Several years after I aged out of the system I had a child of my own who was born with severe Autism and sensory integration disorder. My son Andrew was non-verbal for the first four years even after extensive

Jon Owens was born on March 1, 1960. Jon’s parents feared of having a child with mental retardation. Jon family members are mom is a psychotherapist and dad is a psychiatrist. Jon had two sisters Jennifer and Jennice and a brother Charlton. Jennifer is a filmmaker. Jennifer says Jon is a spiritual teacher. Jennice is a keynote speaker. Charlton is a lawyer and doctor. When Jon was born, a pedestrian told his parents he would never reach age 5. Jon’s parents spoke with a fellow friend and doctor who had brother with Downs’s syndrome. The family friend expressed the grief of putting brother in an institution and how it ruined his family lives. Jon’s parents thought it would best to put him in nursing home. Jon was in a crib all his life. Jon lived in a nursing home for 6 ½ years until his caregiver died. Jon’s parents had received a call to make decisions on Jon’s care. Jon was diagnosed with having Down’s syndrome. Jon was more than a little slow, but mentally retarded. Jon had limited intellectual and physical abilities.

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.

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.

This is a story about Samantha L., a twenty-three year old Aboriginal woman who was born and raised from a remote community in Hodgson Downs, Northern Territory. She is married to Carl and a mother to eight year old Patrick. Her health journey can be traced back when she was still a baby, she suffered from acquired brain injury as a result of head trauma. Acquired brain injury (ABI) according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare refers to any impairment to the brain that happened after birth caused by accidents, stroke, lack of oxygen and degenerative neurological disease which often leads to a range of impairments in cognitive, physical and psychosocial functioning. Furthermore, she is also diagnosed with chronic renal failure and seizure disorder. Samantha grew up in the care of her grandmother whom she fondly called “nana”. Her mother died as a complication of chronic illness which is diabetes while she never knew her father who left them even before she was born. Although she has no siblings, she was showered with love and attention from aunts and cousins. The effect of Samantha’s brain injury is a permanent disability

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

The nurture both of these girls experienced was very neglectful, but it just shows how much nature and nurture both impact a child’s development. Without interacting with people in the world starting at a young age, it puts the children at risk of not being on the correct developmental path. They fall behind the rest of the children their age, and this is a critical period for learning to talk and socialize properly. This is a stage where branching and pruning happens. Which is when the neurons start branching and making connections to new things they are learning so they can develop properly. Then, the neurons that the children aren’t using prune away. If a child doesn’t experience social interaction, speech, or even something as simple as learning to walk properly in this critical period then it will make it very hard for them to develop those skills later in life. When they do start to learn those skills it might take them twice as long, or they may never even fully learn or understand. For example, Rapunzel didn’t experience the world outside the tower until she was a teenager, so when she finally had to socialize with people she was very awkward and didn’t exactly know how to react at first. Later on in the movie, she began to grow and learned how to socialize and maintain social interaction. In a real life situation, Genie on the other hand didn’t know how to socialize at all because she had been cut off from society for basically her whole life. She grew

During our lives, serval blissful, traumatic, culture event that established the transformations during cognitive, social, physical, and characteristic changes in our lives from the time of birth through our death. A person’s existence is shaped and molded by the experiences that have set us physically and mentality. The interview conducted for this project for an understanding of, Mrs. Candi Jones, is a mother, daughter, and sister. She was the middle child of in a physically disable household where father and sister hearing-impaired; a mother who is deaf. They are a mixture of a sibling through birth, adoption, and foster. During the interview with Ms. Jones, she discusses experienced numerous events in her life that play a major influenced

Jon Owens was born on March 1, 1960. Jon’s parents feared of having a child with mental retardation. Jon family members are, mom is a psychotherapist and dad is a psychiatrist. Jon had two sisters Jennifer and Jennice and a brother Charlton. Jennifer is a filmmaker. Jennifer says Jon is a spiritual teacher. Jennice is a keynote speaker. Charlton is a lawyer and a doctor. When Jon was born, a pedestrian told his parents he would never reach age 5. Jon’s parents spoke with a fellow friend and doctor who had a brother with Downs’s syndrome. The family friend expressed the grief of putting brother in an institution and how it ruined his family lives. Jon’s parents thought it would best to put him in a nursing home. Jon was in a crib all his life. Jon lived in a nursing home for 6 ½ years until his caregiver died. Jon’s parents had received a call to make decisions about Jon’s care. Jon was diagnosed with having Down’s syndrome. Jon was more than a little slow, but mentally retarded. Jon had limited intellectual and physical abilities.

Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism was written by Temple Grandin and originally published in 1995 in New York by Doubleday. The edition that I purchased was published in 2010 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. This book was written as an autobiography about Grandin’s life as an autistic child and adult. It also includes general information about autism, reference based medical information, effects and symptoms of autism, and possible treatment plans. In this expanded addition, Grandin included updates after every chapter that provides up-to-date information on research, medications, and Asperger’s syndrome.

In Life-Span Development the class had the ability to observe the infant, Riley, and her parents, Erin and Robin. The class had the ability to discover to talk to real parents and ask the questions that most students are too shy to ask. The class was also able to observe how Riley acted in front of forty people. This experienced allowed people to understand the true development of infant whether it be cognitive, physical or social

Genie’s case is heartbreaking. Not only did she suffer unimaginable traumas during the first 12 years of her life, but her case resulted in a tug-of-war from researchers who wanted to help her, yet wanted to further their own agenda. It was particularly sad to hear that she had returned to live with her mother at age 18, and then entered the foster care system when her mother realized that she was ill equipped to care for her daughter. She was subjected to further trauma and abuse,

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

The documentary of Autism: The Musical showcases children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families throughout a twenty two week program ending with a live performance. The documentary not only highlights the growth the children experience socially and emotionally throughout the program, but the challenges faced by the families and the strategies they employ to overcome them. There are five children focused on over the course of the documentary, Neil, Lexi, Henry, Adam, and Wyatt. Each child is at a different place on the spectrum therefore each family is effected differently by it. In fact each family can be seen at a different stage of acceptance ranging from sock, denial, anger, loneliness, sadness, to acceptance (Autism & Your Family, 2015). Lexi’s father Joe nicely describes some of the stages he experienced starting with denial which he said ended up taking over his whole life for a period of time, a period he describes as fix it mode, then depression because the parent realized that no amount of money or wishing can change the fact that the child has ASD and will always be living with it and finally comes acceptance.

While a mother was escaping an abusive relationship in search of welfare assistance, she took her thirteen-year-old daughter along with her. “Genie,” as she was called, intrigued the social worker in the welfare office. She was mesmerized by Genie’s posture, size, and stance. Curiously enough, the worker thought Genie might have been a case of unreported autism in a possible six- to seven-year-old (Rymer 1993). As a result, the worker notified her supervisor, who contacted the police.