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Brief Summary: The Unsocial Life Of Genie Wiley

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The Unsocial Life of Genie Wiley Ryan Hernandez Lamar Community College Genie Wiley What is socialization, and how important is it for human beings? Socialization is the activity of being social and encountering with others. It is a process of learning how to communicate and behave in a certain way in society. Many people develop these skills as children, but what if they never get the chance to? Genie Wiley is a girl who was found in October of 1970 in a Los Angeles county welfare office. She was 13 years old and weighed about 60 pounds when she was found. Her real name is Susan Wiley, but when she was discovered, they thought of her as a genie. She had spent her entire life in one room, and she was often tied to a potty chair. …show more content…

Scientists and doctors questioned what should be done with her. An expert team of psychologists began the process of trying to rehabilitate her. She would often spit and growl, and she did not know how to chew. She was very quiet and was unable to speak. Her inabilities to use language made it difficult to evaluate her mental abilities, and on tests she scored at about the level of a 1-year-old. The reason why Genie's case was so fascinating to psychologists and linguists was that it presented a unique opportunity. They were able to study a hotly contested debate about language development and human growth. Nativists believe that the capacity for language is something that is done naturally. Empiricists think that it is the environment that someone is in plays a key role in human development. Substantially, it comes down to the age-old question, do genetics or environment play a greater role in developing …show more content…

There was some difficulties with the move but she had appeared to be doing well. Then, she was removed from her psychologists care, and research on Genie stopped. The doctors and scientists did not have enough money or enough findings to keep going with the research. Genie was given back to her birth mother who shortly put her in foster homes because she could not handle the task of taking care of Genie. Due to the treatment of her in foster homes, Genie was scared to speak and she had regressed back to silence. Socialization is very important in child development. It is how we learn to communicate and interact amongst others. Genie did not get the chance to develop these skills and that made it much more difficult for her to learn as she got older. Growing up she had never really ever spoken a single word, so she never learned how to speak. Communication is one of the most important skills for human beings, and it was the skill that Genie lacked most. She had never developed most of the basic skills humans naturally

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Likewise, if children today do not learn the act of deeply reading, their capacity to deeply think may be stunted. However, feral children such as Genie were also victims of abuse and solitary confinement for most of their early years, so their inability to learn language may be also the result of damage caused by abuse. According to Jay Shurley, a specialist in social isolation, says that “solitary confinement is, diabolically, the most severe punishment” (Genie). With a lack of socialization, Genie never learned how to communicate, and as a result, was hampered in this way for the rest of her life. So if a child was never exposed to deep reading, is it possible that they will not be as proficient in these skills, since they were not acquired during the years of major brain

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