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Genie's Psychological Theory In Secret Of The Wild Child

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In the movie, Secret of the Wild Child, social workers recover a young girl who has been stripped of a normal life in society. The young thirteen year old child’s name is Genie and when social workers observe her behavior, they notice something rather odd. Genie was kept in a room strapped to a potty chair and given no social interaction. She didn’t go outside and was beaten for making noise. Because of Genie’s childhood, she was cursed with a funny walk, was mute with no vocabulary, and had to learn how to be a child beyond normal time. Based on these observation, psychoanalysts might say that the critical and sensitive period hypothesis and language theory can explain why Genie developed the way she did. Based on psychological research, the critical period is known to be the time in which a particular type of developmental growth, body or behavior, must happen if it is ever to happen. The sensitive period is the time when a certain type of development is most likely, although it may still happen later. Many would say that Genie did not go through this phase because of her inability to talk and interact with others. Children are more likely to develop language during these phases and because Genie was already thirteen …show more content…

He also explains that the critical period is the particular period in life of humans when it is right for learning language and experimenting this language theory is unethical. Genie was stripped from her sociocultural reality and in response she interacted by spitting, sniffing, clawing, and being self-destructive. She had to learn how to turn anger into words, yet she was unable to form full sentences. Scientist and researchers came to a conclusion that because of the absence of this period, Genie may have been brain damaged or mentally retarded from the

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