Feral children and critical period hypothesis

2. Plan

 Definition
 Historical Background
 Types of Feral children
 Defining Characteristics
 Real cases
Genie ( Background, Tests and results)
 Nature Vs Nurture
Critical Period Hypothesis
 Interests in Feral children
 Conclusion

3. Feral Children

 Also known as wild children (or sometimes wolf
children)
 Have grown up with minimal/no human contact
 Often they have been raised by animals
 Sometimes they have been confined and denied any
interaction with people

4. Definition
= Wild, undomesticated 
 Feral ( Latin: Fera= wild animal )
 Feral children
Human children who, from a very young age, have
lived in isolation from human contact and have
remained unaware of social behavior and unexposed to
human language.
 Cases of feral children are thankfully rare, but are
of immense interest from a scientific and educational
point of view

5. Historical background

 Myths, legends, and fictional stories have depicted
feral children reared by wild animals such as wolves
and bears. There so many famous examples such as
Romulus and Remus ; Romulus and Remus were
twin brothers. They were abandoned by their
parents as babies and put into a basket that was then
placed into the River Tiber. The basket ran aground
and the twins were discovered by a female wolf.

6. 
 There were also some references, in the beginning
of the 14 century , the 19 and also in the 20 century
of course , such as the case of Amala and
Kamala ,who were two "feral girls" from India who
were alleged to have been raised by a wolf family.

7. Some cases of Feral
Children

Feral Children can be subdivided into 3 classes
 Isolated Children
 Confined Children
 Children isolated by animals

8. Defining Characteristics:

 Crawling on all Fours
 Mute
 Hairy
 Wild

9. Real cases

 Wild Peter 1725 _1785 Germany
 Kaspar Hauser 1812_ 1833 Germany
 Kamala and Amala died on 1921 & 1929 India
 Genie 1957 (age 54) United States

10. Genie

 A study of a young girl who was deprived of language in her early years
 BACKGROUND
 Her parents had abused her and kept her locked up for most of her 13
years until she was discovered.
 She had been kept in a small room tied to her potty chair.
 She was not allowed to speak or make sounds.
 She was only given baby food and cereal to eat.
 She had been to the doctor one time in her childhood and there was no
sign or retardation in her first 3 years of life.
 When she was admitted to the hospital in November of 1970, she was 54
inches tall (1.37 m) and weighed only 62 pounds (28 kg).
 She could not stand, chew solid food, and couldn't make sounds.

11. CONCLUSIONS BASED ON
TESTS RUN


The inability to learn was due to the fact that
she had missed her critical period (From two years of
age to puberty) .
 In adverse childhood circumstances, language seems
more vulnerable than other cognitive faculties.
 In cases of deprivation, speech appears to be more
retarted than comprehension. It develops more
slowly after discovery.
 Interpersonal contact makes an important
contribution to the speed and success of late
language development

12. RESULTS OF TESTS ON GENIE

 At first, Genie was unwilling to cooperate.
Researchers had to wait 11 months to run tests
therefore making it hard to truly assess Genie's
linguistic capabilities.
 At first, it was clear Genie could
understand more than she was able to speak.
 Slowly, over 2 years, she began to
understand more and more.
 She finally picked up the difference between
singular and plural nouns, negative and positive
sentence distinctions, possessive constructions, a
few prepositions, and some modifications.

13. Nature vs Nurture

 The study of feral children has focused on some of
the central philosophical and scientific
controversies about human nature. Researchers
have engaged in debates about nature vs. nurture,
which human activities require social instruction,
whether there is a critical period for language
acquisition, and to what extent education can
compensate for delayed development and limited
intelligence.

14. The Critical Period Hypothesis
Lenneberg 1967

 Before age 2 language acquisition is not possibe
because the human brain is not sufficiently mature.
 After puberty the natural language acquisition is not
obtainable because the brain is physiologically
mature.
 So, In order to acquire language there are two
necessary requirements.
 A human brain
 Sufficient exposure to language during this critical
period between the age of two and puberty.

15. The Interest in Feral
Children

 We can learn things that we couldn’t ethically learn
from experiments
 Origins of language and other human attributes
 How close is human nature to animal nature?
 What aspects of human nature are genetic, and what
aspects are learned?
 Could we learn how to speak to animals, or could we
teach animals to speak to humans?

16. Conclusion

 stories of feral children have intrigued many
people - especially scientists and educators - for
possible clues as to the effect of socialization on
language and communication skills, learned
aspects of human behavior and development
and the true nature of humans. Studies of feral
children have led to new methods for teaching
children with learning disabilities, and indirectly
to the development of Braille and sign language

17. 