http://nile.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/wildchild.html
STACY KEACH: Once in a great while, civilized society comes across a wild child, a child who has grown up in severe isolation with virtually no human contact. This is the story of such a case. The story begins in Los Angeles on November 4, 1970.
WALTER CRONKITE: Officials in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia have taken custody of a thirteen-year-old girl they say was kept in such isolation by her parents that she never even learned to talk. Her elderly parents have been charged with child abuse.
STACY KEACH: This is the scene of the crime. The child was locked in a room and tied to a potty chair for most of her life. Completely restrained, she was forced to sit alone day after day and often through the night. She had little to look at and no one to talk to for more than ten years.
WALTER CRONKITE: The girl reportedly was uttering infantile noises and still wearing diapers when a social worker discovered the case two weeks ago, but the authorities are hoping she still may have a normal learning capacity.
STACY KEACH: Here was a thirteen-year-old who seemed like an infant, a girl who'd be known as "Genie." Genie was taken to Children's Hospital in Los Angeles where she immediately won the hearts of doctors and scientists.
SUSAN CURTISS: She was fragile and beautiful, almost haunting, and so I was pulled, I was very drawn to her, even though I was nervous and had no idea, in many respects, what to expect.
but.
it's not a play, damnit. god.
god.
(head in hands, uneven)
/
you were locked in a room from the time you were two to past your thirteenth birthday. you had a birthday party in the children's hospital, your fourteenth birthday...you were amazed by the helium balloons. they set play kitchens to help you learn vocabulary. i can't know how you function. once you were introduced to the naming of things, and to the possibility of all of these other worlds, and to words you...wanted to know the words for everything. you were frustrated that your educators couldn't answer soon enough, with more words, new names for all of the new things.
she said there were some things you just didn't have, you couldn't respond to. you didn't notice, when she let you run your own bath water, that it was. ice cold. she checked it and said "genie, you are going to freeze. this water is so cold." and you didn't seem to notice. it was as if you could not feel it, or had learned to not feel it.
you are now in your forties. you...don't have syntax. you have an incredible lexicon but...the syntax, they're saying that's not going to happen. critical period and that. and. i can't even. imagine. but i do.
WALTER CRONKITE: Officials in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia have taken custody of a thirteen-year-old girl they say was kept in such isolation by her parents that she never even learned to talk. Her elderly parents have been charged with child abuse.
STACY KEACH: This is the scene of the crime. The child was locked in a room and tied to a potty chair for most of her life. Completely restrained, she was forced to sit alone day after day and often through the night. She had little to look at and no one to talk to for more than ten years.
WALTER CRONKITE: The girl reportedly was uttering infantile noises and still wearing diapers when a social worker discovered the case two weeks ago, but the authorities are hoping she still may have a normal learning capacity.
STACY KEACH: Here was a thirteen-year-old who seemed like an infant, a girl who'd be known as "Genie." Genie was taken to Children's Hospital in Los Angeles where she immediately won the hearts of doctors and scientists.
SUSAN CURTISS: She was fragile and beautiful, almost haunting, and so I was pulled, I was very drawn to her, even though I was nervous and had no idea, in many respects, what to expect.
but.
it's not a play, damnit. god.
god.
(head in hands, uneven)
/
you were locked in a room from the time you were two to past your thirteenth birthday. you had a birthday party in the children's hospital, your fourteenth birthday...you were amazed by the helium balloons. they set play kitchens to help you learn vocabulary. i can't know how you function. once you were introduced to the naming of things, and to the possibility of all of these other worlds, and to words you...wanted to know the words for everything. you were frustrated that your educators couldn't answer soon enough, with more words, new names for all of the new things.
she said there were some things you just didn't have, you couldn't respond to. you didn't notice, when she let you run your own bath water, that it was. ice cold. she checked it and said "genie, you are going to freeze. this water is so cold." and you didn't seem to notice. it was as if you could not feel it, or had learned to not feel it.
you are now in your forties. you...don't have syntax. you have an incredible lexicon but...the syntax, they're saying that's not going to happen. critical period and that. and. i can't even. imagine. but i do.