The developmental process of the human mind has proven to be quite the complex scenario, as is displayed in Genie Wiley’s case. Genie is a girl, born in 1957, who was socially isolated from the world around her. Locked in a room for the better part of 13 years, Genie never learned acceptable social interaction behavior. This traumatic experience allegedly had adverse effects on Genie’s social capacity. Genie, a name given to her by caregivers following her discovery, spent the first 13 years of her life strapped to a children’s potty chair or crib. In itself, being isolated for that long would be an extremely traumatic experience, let alone strapped to a chair or bed, immobilized. There is little information as to why this poor girl was tortured so heinously, but many speculate that her parents believed she was mentally ill or handicapped. After being discovered, the abuse didn’t cease in the eyes of many. She went from being socially isolated and alone nearly 24 hours a day, to being under constant watch and testing. Scientists did indeed have Genie’s best interest at heart, but being naturally curious, and seeing Genie’s situation as an opportunity to gain insight in the way the human brain develops, they sometimes lost sight of the fact that she was, in fact, a human being. Without ever knowing if Genie was born with a mental disability, Scientists’ collected data and performed experiments that could possibly be discounted because, like was stated in class “apples and oranges.” Comparing Genie on a scale with other children her age would be unfair, and skew the data results. While quite a bizarre story Genie’s is, it is not the first reported case of feral children being discovered. Some time around the turn of the 18th ... ... middle of paper ... ... heart throughout their time together. Her attempts at understanding Genie, and teaching her language, were in hopes of helping her integrate into society. While many believed that Genie was being unethically treated, Genie thought otherwise, constantly conveying through “speech” and actions that she wanted to return to Butler’s custody. In retrospect, I believe that there are many truths to both Chomsky and Lenneberg’s theories, that time has an effect on language acquisition, but it is not the defining factor. There have been times when deaf people who had no means of communication, were taught language by placing a balloon to their mouth and having the instructor on the other side saying the name of objects so the patient could feel how the words were supposed to be said. I learned this from my mother who is a Communications Specialist for the hearing impaired.
One of the feral cases is that of Genie. This is a girl who was severely abused by her family especially her father. Genie’s father consistently punished her through beating to an extent that she could never have a chance to exercise things as a normal human being. The situation was even worse due to the fact that Genie was kept in a close room right from when she was an infant up to the age of 13 years. By that time, Genie had developed a severe abnormality. Her behavior and physical functioning of her body was completely like that of a less human being. She was speechless, could not construct a two word sentence and demonstrated no sense of personality.
The horrific story of Genie was one of the cruelest instances of social isolation in American history. For nearly 11 years, “Genie” was locked to a chair with homemade strapping device alone in a dark room and was hit by a board each time she made a noise by her sadistic father. She was never exposed to any language, her family left her alone in the dark room. It wasn’t until November 4, 1970, when her mother, who was nearly blind, sought public assistance in Temple City, CA. Genie was discovered at the age of 13 with a body of 5 and had no apparent language skills at all. Psychologists found an interest with her, with the aim to investigate the hypothesis in which language should be acquired and exposed to the child in order for the child
The researchers were trying to help out Genie’s situation the best they could, but the researchers also wanted to learn from her. The team was so caught up in learning and advancing their research on her that they didn’t attend to her needs. The researchers did not ethnically act correctly; they did everything they could, but not what was best for Genie’s wellbeing.
I believe that children need to interact with other native language speakers to be able to learn and develop important linguistic abilities but I also believe that children have an instinctive ability to solve problems and learn from birth. Many feral children studies have such as ‘Genie’ have shown that children have a critical period for learning language and many other functions. Genie was locked up in her room for 11 years from ages 2-13. When she was released from her parents care she demonstrated no understanding of language. Although nobody knows if Genies difficulties in language suggests that she was born with a deficiency or if her nurturing turned her into the person she
On November 4, 1970 in Los Angeles, California Genie’s condition was brought to attention by a social worker. The worker discovered the 13-year old girl in a small, dimly lit, confined bedroom. An investigation by authorities exposed that the child had spent most of her life in this room and typically was tied to a potty chair. Genie was found in diapers because she was not potty trained. Her case is an example of extreme isolation from human contact, society, sunlight, and any other environments besides her room. The deprivation of attachment showed when she was timid to humans, almost afraid. Someone whose life was a developmental nightmare could not possibly be expected to have the basic trust that the world is trustworthy and predictable. The life she lived was incredibly horrifying as morals, and psychology portray just how severe the consequences were on Genie.
When infants are acquiring their first language, adults speak to them differently than they would speak to other adults. This kind of speech is formally named “Infant-Directed speech”, but is also referred to as “baby talk” and “motherese”. Infant-Directed (ID) speech has several properties that distinguish it from Adult-Directed (AD) speech. There is a debate over whether or not ID speech helps infants acquire language or is a hindrance in their language acquisition process Several experiments have been performed to test the effect of ID speech on infants’ language learning. These experiments all used different properties of ID speech. Overall, the experiments have proved that ID speech helps infants acquire language better than AD speech for different reasons. Further studies can be performed on ID speech to learn more about its effects on second language acquisition and on different ages.
...onsequence of her having zero interaction with other humans, this child was not aware of any social qualities. From the example of feral children, we can reasonably infer that socialization and nurture are key ingredients in a child’s development.
Chomsky and Skinner and Theories Of Language Development Many psychologists have studied and researched into how we acquire language. Some have concluded that the ability to learn language is a genetically inherited skill. Others believe that language is learned following birth and is due to environmental factors. This is part of the nature vs. nurture debate.
The number one questions the surrounds the case of Genie Wiley is whether she was born mentally retarded or was this a result of her ten years in isolation from birth? This question can receive two different answers based on how you choose to perceive the nature or the nurture of another person. Genie did have the capacity to grow, just as Victor did in a similar study years ago in France. Once their isolation was removed, they began to civilize, which leads myself to believe that nurture took more part in the development in Genies behavior rather than a genetic disorder that her father seemed to believe she had.
The aim of this essay is to explore language acquisition and compare and contrast different theories of language acquisition and language development. Language in its most basic form is used to communicate our needs and wants. It encompasses a range of modes of delivery including signing, spoken and written words, posture, eye contact, facial expressions and gestures. So how do we learn ‘language’? Are we born with the skills for communication, or is it something that we have to learn or have taught to us? Four theories are looked at in this essay to determine how children acquire and then develop language. These theories include behaviourist, nativist, cognitivist and sociocultural. This essay will highlight some similarities and differences in each theory and what impact these have on a child’s acquisition and development of language. Lastly we will look at the implications of these theories when working with children. Can a classroom teacher deliver a quality literacy program based on just one of these theories or does it need to incorporate components of all four? Sims, (2012) pp. 21 states ‘’High-quality learning experiences in the early years of life enhance children’s cognitive and language skills’’. This places a great responsibility on educators and teachers alike to provide an environment which is rich in learning opportunities that will encourage both the acquisition and development of language.
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
Chomsky describes his theory as language unfolding through natural cognitive ability (Torr, 2015). Instead of the idea of learning language from social interactions and other people, language is something already in the mind that is unlocked (Grammar before meaning, nativist’s perspective). This innate ability is called “Language Acquisition Device (LAD)” (Chomsky 1987, Cited in Harris, 2009, pp.12) and is something children are born with. This device is unrelated and unchanged by the environment and social circumstances of the child, (Torr, 2015). The theory is viewed as unpopular due to a question researchers had in its early stages, (“How could infants possibly learn the underlying syntactic rules of the language on the basis of their exposure to such poor linguistic input?” (Torr 2015, pp. 244)). The question was later answered by the idea of LAD. Finally, Halliday characterised the theory, expressing “…learning of structure is really the heart of the language learning process… not too far-fetched to recognize in the use of the term acquisition… therefore language itself, is a commodity of some kind that the child has to gain possession of in the course of maturation ' (Halliday, 1975. Cited in Torr 2015, pp. 244 ) basically stating that language development maybe a combination of both theories. Although the unpopular of the two theories, Chomsky had a grand influence
A linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Chomsky, declared that we have the ability to learn language not only because somebody taught us, but also because we are born with the principles of language in our genes. Chomsky also said “We have language because of nature, not just nurture” (Everywhere Psychology, 2012). Chomsky was one of the people that believed Genie still had a chance to learn language since everybody is born with the ability to learn. A neuropsychologist named Eric Lenneberg, agreed with Chomsky about humans being born with the ability to learn a language as nature, but believed there is a deadline for learning language. Lenneberg believed that if a first language isn 't learned by puberty it could be too late. What Lenneberg proposed is called the "critical period hypothesis," (Everywhere Psychology,
Chomsky believes that there is a language acquisition device somwehre in the brain which enables children to distinguish between linguistically acceptable and non-acceptable language.it also provides children with the basic rules of grammar that govern the use of language, which are exacted through trial and error. The nativists belive that this language acquisition device explains why all normal children acquire language during the same time period in a certain order and for the fact that children can understand new sentences and formations of sentences without ever having had experience of them before. It is evident, however that there are many weaknesses with this theory; primarily that it is not a complete enough theory to explain the whole of language acquisition. It does notr explain why socially deprived and isolated children, for example geneie, have non-existant language skills. even when they were reintroduced into society, they failed to acquire much more than a very basic level of linguistic knowledge.
The subtlety of language acquisition has been the most fundamental question in the study of linguistics and human development. From Bow-wow Theory to Yo-He-Ho Theory, the major theories on language origins and learnability emerged at mid-20th century and has been heavily debated ever since. Among them, the idea of universal grammar in which is usually credited to linguist Noam Chomsky, remains the most notable and controversial theory over time. He introduced and developed the t heory from 1950s to 1970s as he proposed and championed linguistic nativism in language acquisition. Chomsky supports that language mastery involves knowledge of linguistic rules and conventions, which he later named that as ‘cognizance’. He believes that cognizance is present in some particular regions in human’s brain where it inherently contributes to the acquisition and usage of language. Such language faculty is the initial root of all linguistic grammatical rules and principles; it is the mental archetype of all languages. To begin with, Chomsky chooses to focus on children’s acquisition of language because children have the least pre-existing knowledge of language compared to adults. Children in this case are the primal study in the innateness of language. By looking into children’s interaction in language acquisition, Chomsky reasons his arguments with “primary linguistic data” where Primary linguistic data is the first-ever language experience in childhood. This learning experience simultaneously interacts and activates the initial cognizance of children, resulting to one’s linguistic knowledge from the exposed language. It is the crucial knowledge for the comprehension of speech and language. By studying children’s language acquisition, it is irr...