Legends about the children brought up by animals are old as the world. One of the most popular is the legend about two brothers (Rome’s founders) being raised by a she-wolf - Romulus and Remus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus).
But not about legends I will tell, I’ll present two shocking stories from the recent past.
Genie
For the first 13 years of age she stayed locked in his bedroom, being completely isolated from the surrounding world. She was discovered on November 4, 1970.
During the day she was tied to a chair at night locked in a cage. Each time when she tried to say anything, she was beaten. as a thirteen year old girl was almost mute- she knew about 20 words, most of which have strongly negative connotations such as "Stop." After that she was discovered she went to Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. Over the next few years, Genie was changed foster home several times.
She has made great progress while she was living with a psychologist. Genie learned to express themselves through sign language. After discontinuation of funding for research psychologist decided to abandon of girl foster and then she was returned to her mother.
After several months she gave up custody of her daughter. Next Genie went to six different foster families what was not only a progress deterioration but also a complete educational disaster. In some houses she was mentally abused and finally she returned to the phase of a complete lack of communication.
All of her story was described in 1994 in a book by Russ Rymer and presented in the film "A bird in a cage" directed by Harry Bromley Davenport.
Oksana
She was born in 1983 in a family of alcoholics living in Ukraine. She was kicked out of Home when she was 3 years old. Lived among the dogs she learned behavior from their, five years feeding raw meat. She was ran on all fours, barked and sniff food.
Among animals she was deprived of the human intellectual and social stimulation. The five-year absence of interaction was very difficult for a young girl to learn human language. Now after a long therapy she can speak.
Research from 2005 saying that Oksana is at a six-year mental development. Can count, but does not know how to sum two numbers. Can not read or spell.
Currently, she lives in a home for the mentally ill where takes care of the animals staying there.
The left hand scan shows the brain of a normal three year old with healthy neural development. The right hand scan shows dark patches where whole areas of the feral brain have shrunk from lack of stimulation.Stories of feral children shows that the difference between humans and animals is less than we would like to be. Studies of this kind of cases shows that to be fully human must become one. As we can see the culture is fundamental importance.
What do you think about that?
Sources
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29
- http://www.focus.pl/cywilizacja/zobacz/publikacje/dzika-adopcja/nc/1/
- Television document “Believe or not” on National Geographic channel
Of course a society and proper uprising have play a very important role in making us a civilised people but even neglected or feral people are still humans. But the most important is living in a group of other humans. Take in account some brasilian tribes in Amazon forests that were discovered quite recently. Although they were significantly backwarded they had much more advanced relationships and hierarchy than animals.
ReplyDeleteIn my view, these facts prove that that man is an animal instinct for survival. We are able to adapt to the situation as illustrated by Oksana. Recently I read that certain breeds of dogs are starting to have vocal cords like a man, scientists believe that for two thousand years the dogs will be allowed to speak. Examples are parrots that have already adapted and are able to repeat the people. It's strange in the developed world so this is weird stuff.
ReplyDeleteThat I wanted to raise, I’ve never imagined anything like this outside of some legends and stories from 200 years before. Oksana is a year older than me, I can not believe that it happened in europe in the twentieth century just like I can not imagine people who are less likely to send children to middle-school nowadays and I know such cases. For me it is a kind of disability.
ReplyDeleteWell this topic is quite interesting and really shows how important is proper raising of children. Most interesting for me is the brain photo as I haven't imagined that such events could lead to brain damage.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFor me too Michał.
ReplyDeleteAfter my daughter was born our parents are giving advises to us all the time, but this one is probably most stuck in my head: “remember! Always talk to Maya, even now when she is so tiny”. And this picture shows me how strong power these words have.
It’s incredible how society influence growing-up-child. I agree with Marek that neglected or feral people are still humans. It’s terrible that some children were raised this way. This fact proved we have more in common with animals than we thought. Leaving child for itself when it’s three years old shouldn’t be a human typical behavior. Genie’s example shows the importance of stability in child’s early life, she shouldn’t have changed foster homes for so many times, because it was unhelpful to her to understand normal human life.
ReplyDeletePiotr Bucior:
ReplyDeleteWhat you think about such stimulant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wyW7uaXV8E
I wonder how such scan will look like.
Wow, simply wow. It's really astonishing that such stories happen. The second thing that amazes me is that thanks to this we can imagine an influence that society has on a person. I really can't think of any other positive sides of those stories.
ReplyDeleteThat's amazing and very sad in the same time. I never thought something like that could be possible. Lack of few years in childhood development could bring so much damage for the whole life. This cases shows how much Tarzan story is unlikely.
ReplyDeleteI've heard from my boss that people are like rats - they can used to every situation. I think that's true. So parenting by animals is unusual but possible.
ReplyDelete