importance of language

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Today in psychology class we watched a documentary about language and about this girl that was found in the city nxt to mine in the early 70's that was tied to a potty chair most of her life and had no speech. she was intentionally tied and locked up there by her father when she was a baby. to the press she was the wild child ,but dubbed genie. What I want to know is when did you first start really speaking and were there any of you with delayed speech and your parents may have thought something was wrong with you? Also even if a person isn't isolated from people could not teaching a child to speak be considered abuse?. why do we even use verbal words when we could just type letters to eachother?. anyone ever blame your parents for the way you act?.

I was non-verbal, no words at all didn't start coming out of my mouth until I was 4, I only started babbling like da da at the age of 3ish. My parents had no idea what was going on, and why I wasn't communicating. I hated it, it was horrible not being able to communicate your thoughts. I never blame my parents though, they paid out of their own pockets for me to get intense speech therapy so I would have a voice today. I just wish sign language was more known when I was growing up, I would have benefitted from it so much!

If a child isn't isolated from people, then how could they NOT learn language? Unless the only people they saw were their family members and their family members never spoke around them, is that what you mean? Is that what happened to the poor girl in the video?

Writing/typing letters to people sounds like a good way to communicate to me. But it would take a lot longer usually, and what would we do with our vocal chords if we couldn't talk? (I would just be silent or make noises, but a lot of people would argue that vocal chords were made for talking, I think.)

Also, I like spoken language because I like accents, etc.

The point about genie is they have found from 'feral' children like her that around 8 or 9 years old is the magic cut off point.

It has been traditionally thought that language was something that was taught and we are capable to speak simply because we can take it in.

Not entirely true. They have found out that the capability to understand sentences and crucially sentence structure and syntax is not learnt but passed down genetically.

Parrots, dolphins, chimps and bonobos understand and can associate words with things. They can also combine some words to create different meanings. There have also have shown that they can understand the significance of order on meaning in some cases. What they can't do is structured sentences, or use complex language. This is the level that genie is at.

She won't ever be able to learn it either. After around 8 or 9 that part of the brain fuses. It is essentially hard wired if you like. If a child hasn't learnt to speak before 8 or 9 they will never be able to understand language beyond the level of a parrot or bonobo.

no adrie, nobody talked to her not even her older brother and when the authorities asked him about her he acted like he didnt know what they were talking about because they pretty much stayed away form her and not even the neighbors knew there was a girl in that house. and she was kept in a cage with a chicken wire top and it was dark. the parents were pretty old though at the time and when she was found she was no bigger than a 7 year old when found so she was a small 13 year old.

Hey Sandra!

Yeah we actually studied Genie in my sociology class for how the world affects how we learn.

Yeah, she also only really had one side of the room for sensory input for her whole life and a whole bunch of other things. I think they did eventually get her to learn speach but she never got passed the equivalent of a third grade education and they did an MRI of her brain and the malnutrition AND lack of stimulation not only permanently stunted the growth of her body but of her brain as well as it was noticeably smaller than normal.

I knew that she didnt eat much and that's why she probably didn't develop very well.