Case Study Genie Essay example - 954 Words

While a mother was escaping an abusive relationship in search of welfare assistance, she took her thirteen-year-old daughter along with her. â€Å"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. When Genie was first brought to the hospital for tests, she weighed only fifty-nine pounds. She was incontinent, could not chew solid food, could barely swallow, and could not focus her eyes beyond twelve feet. She salivated persistently and spat†¦show more content†¦Not long after being admitted to the hospital, Genie seemed to recognize only her name and the word â€Å"sorry.† She scored as low as normal one-year-olds on maturity and preschool attainment scale s. According to Piaget, there are six substages contained with the Sensorimotor stage of development. It seems as if Genie may have passed up substages three through six of the Sensorimotor stage. Throughout her first seven months of instruction, she identified hundreds of new words and began to speak. Eventually, Genie began using two-word phrases, much like most eighteen-month-olds do. Then, in turn, she progressed to using three-word phrases. She had a referential style of language learning since most of the words she used were ones that referred to objects. Furthermore, Genie never asked questions and didn’t comprehend a great deal of grammar. She never had a speech â€Å"explosion† like most children after reaching the two-word stage. Her language was in no way fully-developed. One of the theories that best explains the pattern of language that Genie demonstrated is the Behaviorist perspective. B.F. Skinner believed that human behaviors are determined by learning and reinforcement. In the beginning of Genie’s life, she did not have her parents reinforcing her words with any kind of response. In addition, she lacked having someone to imitate language with. This was most likely a useful technique for Curtiss to use while working with Genie.Show MoreRelatedA Feral Child With A History Of Near Total Social Isolation1556 Words   |  7 Pagesan in-depth review as to how this case relates to the three major sociological theories. Throughout its span of history, this case experienced successes and failures, turned friends and colleagues into enemies, witnessed a variety of lawsuits and questionable legal decisions and clouded the judgment of many, yet through it all, this child s resilience was unwavered as she tried to become part of the world that had failed her since birth. The is the story of Genie, also known as the wild childRead MoreChildhood And Going Into Adult Hood1487 Words   |  6 Pagesprogramme and 44 other ju venile who have not yet committed any crime to act as the control group what he did next was brought all the parents and† interviewed them to see if they had been separated in the critical period and for how long†(1). During the study John Bowlby found vast amount of critical results which would help prove and solidify his hypothesis. He found that those who were in the 44 juvenile thieves group that the majority of them were detached from their mother in the critical period inRead MoreGenie : A Special Individual1636 Words   |  7 Pagesnamed Genie in Los Angeles in 1970. Genie, as Susan Curtiss explains it, is an individual put into the world with no prior engagement beforehand. This means that Genie has had little to no contact with other people. This also means that Genie has never learned a specific language. Genie is a special individual put under a predicament that has altered her ability to learn and be social. As the video progresses, it says that she was tied to a potty chair for the first ten years of her life. Genie s parentsRead MoreThe Linguistic Development Of Genie By Susan Curtiss Essay810 Words   |  4 Pageseducate children in a proper way. In ‘The Linguistic Developme nt of Genie’ by Susan Curtiss, Victoria Fromkin, Stephen Krashen, David Rigler and Marilyn Rigler (1974) claimed that a girl named Genie, her father used authoritarian-parenting style and her mother used uninvolved parenting style to teach her. Thus, Genie got little care in her childhood and sometimes would be physically punished. In spite of this when people discovered Genie and sent her to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, doctorsRead MoreThe Acquisition Of Language And The Critical Period845 Words   |  4 Pagesthere one for the acquisition of language? The case study, â€Å"The Linguistic Development of Genie† (Curtiss, et al 1974) and paper â€Å"Maturational Constraints on Language Learning†(Newport, 1990) implicates that the theory of the critical period can apply for acquisition of language. The case study of Genie demonstrates an unfortunate but unique in which the hypothesized critical period for language acquisition was missed. It was hypothesized that Genie would not be able to acquire language at the ageRead MoreChildren Do Not Come Into The World With Culture1718 Words   |  7 Pagespsychologists a new perspective into the study of socialization (N.A. 2015). If a child does miss the crucial milestones in their social and psychological development, then it will be hard, nearing impossible, to ever actually catch up in their development. Because it is dangerous and harmful to pull someone from society, researchers cannot place a human in absolute social isolation for research purposes due to obvious ethical reasons. That is why, though tragic, cases of social isolation, typically inRead MoreThe Child Of The Wild Child1256 Words   |  6 PagesSusan Wiley, or most commonly known as Genie the Wild Child was born on the 18th of April 1957. She was the fourth child of Clark and Irene Wiley and was one of two children that survived childhood. Her parents were married in 1944 Clark was 20 years his wife’s se nior and their marriage was riddled with domestic violence. Their first two children were both suspiciously killed before their first birthday. It was reported that Clark Wiley extremely disliked children and was very mentally unstable.Read MoreChildren Can Recover From Cognitive Impairment Following Severe Early Deprivation Essay1490 Words   |  6 PagesThey are a variety of studies that aim at finding out if children can recover from cognitive impairment following severe early deprivation. One of the studies that I will focus on is called the ERA study (2015). The ERA study examined 324children from Romanian orphanages of the Ceausescu regime, aged 4,6,11 and 15 with a similar characteristic, whom were later adopted by families in the UK. This sample was taken between 1990 and 1992. The children in the Romanian institution weren’t just deprivedRead MoreThe Debate Of Nature Vs Nurture1445 Words   |  6 Pagesassignment is to discuss the importance of attachment in human development. To do this we can make reference to the case of Genie who suffered severe neglect as a child. Behaviourism was first introduced by John Watson who opposed the naturists and took the view that the mind is there to be manipulated through conditioning methods and so attachments are learned. However there are theories and studies which counter the argument. The evolutionary theory of attachment was developed by John Bowlby a psychoanalystRead MoreGenie Wiley1498 Words   |  6 PagesSusan Wiley (‘Genie’) * Genie was discovered on 4th November 1970 in Los Angeles. * The thirteen year old girl had been confined to a small room and spent most of her life often tied to a potty chair. * The girl was given the name Genie to protect her identity and privacy. The case name is Genie. This is not the persons real name, but when we think about what a genie is, a genie is a creature that comes out of a bottle or whatever, but emerges into human society past childhood. We assume