Genie's Theory Of Isolation

On November 4, 1970 in California, a social worker discovered a thirteen-year-old was kept in isolation all her life. The girl was named Genie in order to protect her identity. When Genie was found, she could not speak or walk. She was tied to a potty chair with no one to talk to. Not only did she display unhuman characteristics but she was also abused. When Genie made noise, her father would beat her and she rarely spoke to her mother and brother. The few times her father spoke to her was to bark at her. Her father thought she was mentally retarded at birth which is why the parents kept her in isolation. Genie was then taken as an experiment to determine whether a nurturing environment can make up for its past. Psychologists and linguists
Skinner’s and Noam Chomsky’s theory in some ways. Though children must be taught a native language, Genie was able to imitate from her environment and learn new things every day through the help of linguists and the psychologists. Genie’s brain patterns were measured while she slept, which determined that shew as brain damaged due to isolation. Genie began to sleep about 100 words. Though doctors thought she was going to get better she would improve consistently, but in a very low process. Genie started to discover the world and socialize with others. What was learned from this case study was that Genie was able to use language and describe her past events. Genie’s case showed since she was isolated for a long period of time, she did not develop any language. It took several years to learn language, after Genie started going through puberty was when she her language acquisition started showing progress. Researchers thought she could overcome her deprived childhood and learn language, but it failed. Genie could not use language or put sentences together. Since she was abused, researchers could not determine whether she had cognitive deficits when she was
However, the two theories proved that a child must learn language at an early age in order to acquire the words. I found interesting that many individuals were apart of Genie’s life yet no one was able to help her. Genie spent a lot of time living with the doctors and psychologists instead of her own mother. I was surprised by the fact that her father committed suicide soon after he and his wife were being charged with abuse. Genie lived with Butler which was one of her teachers then he began restricting access to Genie because he began to be protective of her. I was also amused by the fact that Genie was then moved to a psychologist’s home, David Rigler, I felt that it was not right for Genie to be moving from home to home. Then after Genie was moved back with her birth mother which I thought was interesting because if her mother neglected her for many years, why would she move back with her? The psychological factors that I found interesting was that Genie was kept in isolation for such a long time, yet she was moving from place to place, moved back from her family, then ended up in a nursing home; not only did it affect her emotionally but mentally as well. She was barely starting to learn about her surroundings and the environment which was taken from her for years, yet she was not being placed in a stable environment where she