Overall I think that the documentary was very interesting. Not only it explains the experiences of children who were raised in the wilderness, with other animals, or isolated, but it also describes how parental love and communication are important to children. From the information conveyed in the documentary and material studied in the chapter regarding the anatomy of the brain, I think that language highly influences intelligence, understood as the capacity to think and reason clearly and to act effectively in adapting to the environment. However, I also think that feral children’s “inferiority” in intelligence is given by the fact that they are raised without human care and in isolation. That being said, I believe that feral children do develop some kinds of intelligence, even in the absence of language and human care. Children are highly …show more content…
An example of this is how Axana, the Ukrainian girl who was raised by dogs, behaved more like a dog than a human being after living some of her childhood years with such animals. Genie’s story is however the most helpful one in our case. She was raised inside a bedroom, completely isolated from the outside world, knowing nothing about it, including language. Her existence was discovered when she was thirteen. When trying to learn the language, she could memorize only vocabulary, failing to learn grammar and to make proper sense. Thus, Genie was not able to actually develop language. The reason why this happened has to do with the anatomy and working principles of the brain, more specifically neuroplasticity. In fact, as we learn and actively use certain parts of the brain, we basically enhance those parts of the brain by forming new