Portal:Greater Los Angeles/Selected biography/4

Genie (born 1957) is the pseudonym of a feral child who was the victim of extraordinarily severe abuse, neglect and social isolation. Her circumstances are recorded prominently in the annals of abnormal child psychology. Born in Arcadia, California, United States, Genie's father kept her locked alone in a room from the age of 20 months to 13 years, 7 months, almost always strapped to a child's toilet or bound in a crib with her arms and legs completely immobilized. During this time she was never exposed to any significant amount of speech, and as a result she did not acquire a first language during childhood. Her abuse came to the attention of Los Angeles child welfare authorities on November 4, 1970.

In the first several years after Genie's life and circumstances came to light, psychologists, linguists and other scientists focused a great deal of attention on Genie's case, seeing in her near-total isolation an opportunity to study many aspects of human development. Upon finding that she had not yet learned a language, linguists saw Genie as potentially being an important way to gain further insight into the processes controlling language acquisition skills and linguistic development. Extensive observation of their new-found human subject enabled them to publish multiple academic works testing theories and hypotheses identifying critical periods during which humans learn to understand and use language. In addition, tests on Genie's brain found discrepancies far larger than any prior observations of people with fully intact brains, giving rise to many new hypotheses on brain lateralization and its effect on both language and other mental processes.

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