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The Story of Genie Wiley

What her tragic story revealed about language and development

Who Was Genie Wiley?

Why was the genie wiley case so famous, did genie learn to speak, ethical concerns.

While there have been a number of cases of feral children raised in social isolation with little or no human contact, few have captured public and scientific attention, like that of Genie Wiley.

Genie spent almost her entire childhood locked in a bedroom, isolated, and abused for over a decade. Her case was one of the first to put the critical period theory to the test. Could a child reared in utter deprivation and isolation develop language? Could a nurturing environment make up for a horrifying past?

In order to understand Genie's story, it is important to look at what is known about her early life, the discovery of the abuse she had endured, and the subsequent efforts to treat and study her.

Early Life (1957-1970)

Genie's life prior to her discovery was one of utter deprivation. She spent most of her days tied naked to a potty chair, only able to move her hands and feet. When she made noise, her father would beat her. The rare times her father did interact with her, it was to bark or growl. Genie Wiley's brother, who was five years older than Genie, also suffered abuse under their father.

Discovery and Study (1970-1975)

Genie's story came to light on November 4, 1970, in Los Angeles, California. A social worker discovered the 13-year old girl after her mother sought out services for her own health. The social worker soon discovered that the girl had been confined to a small room, and an investigation by authorities quickly revealed that the child had spent most of her life in this room, often tied to a potty chair.

A Genie Wiley documentary was made in 1997 called "Secrets of the Wild Child." In it, Susan Curtiss, PhD, a linguist and researcher who worked with Genie, explained that the name Genie was used in case files to protect the girl's identity and privacy.

The case name is Genie. This is not the person's real name, but when we think about what a genie is, a genie is a creature that comes out of a bottle or whatever but emerges into human society past childhood. We assume that it really isn't a creature that had a human childhood.

Both parents were charged with abuse , but Genie's father died by suicide the day before he was due to appear in court, leaving behind a note stating that "the world will never understand."

The story of Genie's case soon spread, drawing attention from both the public and the scientific community. The case was important, said psycholinguist and author Harlan Lane, PhD, because "our morality doesn’t allow us to conduct deprivation experiments with human beings; these unfortunate people are all we have to go on."

With so much interest in her case, the question became what should be done to help her. A team of psychologists and language experts began the process of rehabilitating Genie.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) provided funding for scientific research on Genie’s case. Psychologist David Rigler, PhD, was part of the "Genie team" and he explained the process.

I think everybody who came in contact with her was attracted to her. She had a quality of somehow connecting with people, which developed more and more but was present, really, from the start. She had a way of reaching out without saying anything, but just somehow by the kind of look in her eyes, and people wanted to do things for her.

Genie's rehabilitation team also included graduate student Susan Curtiss and psychologist James Kent. Upon her initial arrival at UCLA, Genie weighed just 59 pounds and moved with a strange "bunny walk." She often spat and was unable to straighten her arms and legs. Silent, incontinent, and unable to chew, she initially seemed only able to recognize her own name and the word "sorry."

After assessing Genie's emotional and cognitive abilities, Kent described her as "the most profoundly damaged child I've ever seen … Genie's life is a wasteland." Her silence and inability to use language made it difficult to assess her mental abilities, but on tests, she scored at about the level of a 1-year-old.

Genie Wiley's Rehabilitation and the Forbidden Experiment

She soon began to rapidly progress in specific areas, quickly learning how to use the toilet and dress herself. Over the next few months, she began to experience more developmental progress but remained poor in areas such as language. She enjoyed going out on day trips outside of the hospital and explored her new environment with an intensity that amazed her caregivers and strangers alike.

Curtiss suggested that Genie had a strong ability to communicate nonverbally , often receiving gifts from total strangers who seemed to understand the young girl's powerful need to explore the world around her.

Psychiatrist Jay Shurley, MD, helped assess Genie after she was first discovered, and he noted that since situations like hers were so rare, she quickly became the center of a battle between the researchers involved in her case. Arguments over the research and the course of her treatment soon erupted. Genie occasionally spent the night at the home of Jean Butler, one of her teachers.

After an outbreak of measles, Genie was quarantined at her teacher's home. Butler soon became protective and began restricting access to Genie. Other members of the team felt that Butler's goal was to become famous from the case, at one point claiming that Butler had called herself the next Anne Sullivan, the teacher famous for helping Helen Keller learn to communicate.  

Genie was partially treated like an asset and an opportunity for recognition, significantly interfering with their roles, and the researchers fought with each other for access to their perceived power source.

Eventually, Genie was removed from Butler's care and went to live in the home of psychologist David Rigler, where she remained for the next four years. Despite some difficulties, she appeared to do well in the Rigler household. She enjoyed listening to classical music on the piano and loved to draw, often finding it easier to communicate through drawing than through other methods.

After Genie was discovered, a group of researchers began the process of rehabilitation. However, this work also coincided with research to study her ability to acquire and use language. These two interests led to conflicts in her treatment and between the researchers and therapists working on her case.

State Custody (1975-Present)

NIMH withdrew funding in 1974, due to the lack of scientific findings. Linguist Susan Curtiss had found that while Genie could use words, she could not produce grammar. She could not arrange these words in a meaningful way, supporting the idea of a critical period in language development.

Rigler's research was disorganized and largely anecdotal. Without funds to continue the research and care for Genie, she was moved from the Riglers' care.

In 1975, Genie returned to live with her birth mother. When her mother found the task too difficult, Genie was moved through a series of foster homes, where she was often subjected to further abuse and neglect .

Genie’s situation continued to worsen. After spending a significant amount of time in foster homes, she returned to Children’s Hospital. Unfortunately, the progress that had occurred during her first stay had been severely compromised by the subsequent treatment she received in foster care. Genie was afraid to open her mouth and had regressed back into silence.

Genie’s birth mother then sued the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the research team, charging them with excessive testing. While the lawsuit was eventually settled, it raised important questions about the treatment and care of Genie. Did the research interfere with the girl's therapeutic treatment?

Psychiatrist Jay Shurley visited her on her 27th and 29th birthdays and characterized her as largely silent, depressed , and chronically institutionalized. Little is known about Genie's present condition, although an anonymous individual hired a private investigator to track her down in 2000 and described her as happy. But this contrasts with other reports.

Genie Wiley Today

Today, Genie Wiley's whereabouts are unknown; though, if she is still living, she is presumed to be a ward of the state of California, living in an adult care home. As of 2024, Genie would be 66-67 years old.

Part of the reason why Genie's case fascinated psychologists and linguists so deeply was that it presented a unique opportunity to study a hotly contested debate about language development.

Essentially, it boils down to the age-old nature versus nurture debate. Does genetics or environment play a greater role in the development of language?

Nativists believe that the capacity for language is innate, while empiricists suggest that environmental variables play a key role. Nativist Noam Chomsky suggested that acquiring language could not be fully explained by learning alone.

Instead, Chomsky proposed that children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), an innate ability to understand the principles of language. Once exposed to language, the LAD allows children to learn the language at a remarkable pace.

Critical Periods

Linguist Eric Lenneberg suggests that like many other human behaviors, the ability to acquire language is subject to critical periods. A critical period is a limited span of time during which an organism is sensitive to external stimuli and capable of acquiring certain skills.

According to Lenneberg, the critical period for language acquisition lasts until around age 12. After the onset of puberty, he argued, the organization of the brain becomes set and no longer able to learn and use language in a fully functional manner.

Genie's case presented researchers with a unique opportunity. If given an enriched learning environment, could she overcome her deprived childhood and learn language even though she had missed the critical period?

If Genie could learn language, it would suggest that the critical period hypothesis of language development was wrong. If she could not, it would indicate that Lenneberg's theory was correct.

Despite scoring at the level of a 1-year-old upon her initial assessment, Genie quickly began adding new words to her vocabulary. She started by learning single words and eventually began putting two words together much the way young children do. Curtiss began to feel that Genie would be fully capable of acquiring language.

After a year of treatment, Genie started putting three words together occasionally. In children going through normal language development, this stage is followed by what is known as a language explosion. Children rapidly acquire new words and begin putting them together in novel ways.

Unfortunately, this never happened for Genie. Her language abilities remained stuck at this stage and she appeared unable to apply grammatical rules and use language in a meaningful way. At this point, her progress leveled off and her acquisition of new language halted.

While Genie was able to learn some language after puberty, her inability to use grammar (which Chomsky suggests is what separates human language from animal communication) offers evidence for the critical period hypothesis.

Of course, Genie's case is not so simple. Not only did she miss the critical period for learning language, but she was also horrifically abused. She was malnourished and deprived of cognitive stimulation for most of her childhood.

Researchers were also never able to fully determine if Genie had any pre-existing cognitive deficits. As an infant, a pediatrician had identified her as having some type of mental delay. So researchers were left to wonder whether Genie had experienced cognitive deficits caused by her years of abuse or if she had been born with some degree of intellectual disability.

There are many ethical concerns surrounding Genie's story. Arguments among those in charge of Genie's care and rehabilitation reflect some of these concerns.

"If you want to do rigorous science, then Genie's interests are going to come second some of the time. If you only care about helping Genie, then you wouldn't do a lot of the scientific research," suggested psycholinguist Harlan Lane in the NOVA documentary focused on her life.

In Genie's case, some of the researchers held multiple roles of caretaker-teacher-researcher-housemate. which, by modern standards, we would deem unethical. For example, the Riglers benefitted financially by taking Genie in (David received a large grant and was released from certain duties at the children's hospital without loss of pay). Butler also played a role in removing Genie from the Riglers' home, filing multiple complaints against him.

While Genie's story may be studied for its implications in our understanding of language acquisition and development, it is also a case that will continue to be studied over its serious ethical issues.

"I think future generations are going to study Genie's case not only for what it can teach us about human development but also for what it can teach us about the rewards and the risks of conducting 'the forbidden experiment,'" Lane explained.

Bottom Line

Genie Wiley's story perhaps leaves us with more questions than answers. Though it was difficult for Genie to learn language, she was able to communicate through body language, music, and art once she was in a safe home environment. Unfortunately, we don't know what her progress could have been had adequate care not been taken away from her.

Ultimately, her case is so important for the psychology and research field because we must learn from this experience not to revictimize and exploit the very people we set out to help. This is an important lesson because Genie's original abuse by her parents was perpetuated by the neglect and abandonment she faced later in her life. We must always strive to maintain objectivity and consider the best interest of the subject before our own.

Frequently Asked Questions

Genie, now in her 60s, is believed to be living in an adult care facility in California. Efforts by journalists to learn more about her location and current condition have been rejected by authorities due to confidentiality rules. Curtiss has also reported attempting to contact Genie without success.

Along with her husband, Irene Wiley was charged with abuse, but these charges were eventually dropped. Irene was blind and reportedly mentally ill, so it is believed that Genie's father was the child's primary caretaker. Genie's father, Clark Wiley, also abused his wife and other children. Two of the couple's children died in infancy under suspicious circumstances.

Genie's story suggests that the acquisition of language has a critical period of development. Her case is complex, however, since it is unclear if her language deficits were due to deprivation or if there was an underlying mental disability that played a role. The severe abuse she experienced may have also affected her mental development and language acquisition.

Collection of research materials related to linguistic-psychological studies of Genie (pseudonym) (collection 800) . UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Schoneberger T. Three myths from the language acquisition literature . Anal Verbal Behav. 2010;26(1):107–131. doi:10.1007/bf03393086

APA Dictionary of Psychology. Language acquisition device . American Psychological Association.

Vanhove J. The critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition: A statistical critique and a reanalysis .  PLoS One . 2013;8(7):e69172. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0069172

Carroll R. Starved, tortured, forgotten: Genie, the feral child who left a mark on researchers . The Guardian .

James SD. Raised by a tyrant, suffering a sibling's abuse . ABC News .

  NOVA . The secret of the wild child [transcript]. PBS,

Pines M. The civilizing of Genie. In: Kasper LF, ed., Teaching English Through the Disciplines: Psychology . Whittier.

Rolls G.  Classic Case Studies in Psychology (2nd ed.). Hodder Arnold.

Rymer R. Genie: A Scientific Tragedy.  Harper-Collins.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

The Feral Child Nicknamed Genie

Sad case of child abuse sheds light on language production versus comprehension..

Posted July 10, 2017 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Genie was born to deranged parents. Her father was extremely intolerant of loud noises and didn't want children, but he and his wife ended up having babies. Lots of them. Most of them died from child neglect. Genie was one of few who survived.

Because of her father's sensitivity to noice and lack of care for others, Genie spent the first 13 years of her life strapped to a potty or a chair in a homemade straightjacket. If she made any noise whatsoever, her dad would beat her with a baseball bat. She was never spoken to. She was a true feral child.

When Child Protective Services finally intervened, Genie had virtually no physical abilities beyond those of a toddler. She was severely underweight and couldn't speak.

Linguist Susan Curtiss befriended her and attempted to teach her language and challenge her mental abilities. Susan Curtiss quickly learned that Genie was highly intelligent. She was able to tell sophisticated stories, not in words, but in pictures. Using pictures, she could tell intricate narratives.

Susan Curtiss worked with Genie to teach her English. Genie soon developed a rather large lexicon and was able to express herself. But despite extensive training, she remained unable to produce grammatical sentences. Here is a transcript of one of her reports of her time in the hands of her father:

Father hit arm. Big wood. Genie cry ... Not spit. Father. Hit face—spit ... Father hit big stick. Father angry. Father hit Genie big stick. Father take piece wood hit. Cry. Me cry.

Despite the tragedy that surrounds the case of Genie, her case teaches us an important lesson about language abilities. Telling a story (not necessarily in a grammatical way or even by using words) as well as understanding language are very different from being able to produce grammatical sentences in a language.

The language areas of the brain are actually divided between Wernicke's area and Broca's area (among other important language facilitating areas). Wernicke's area sits on the left side of the head (just above the ear) in the temporal lope, whereas the Broca area is located at the beginning of the frontal part of the brain (a bit further front). Wernicke's area is responsible for understanding speech and other communicative signals, whereas Broca's area is mainly in charge of producing grammatical sentences (alongside the motor area, which is needed to express what you want to say verbally—using lip movement and gestures, for instance).

The case of Genie confirms that there is a certain window of opportunity that sets the limit for when you can become relatively fluent in a language. Of course, if you already are fluent in another language, the brain is already primed for language acquisition and you may well succeed in becoming fluent in a second or third language. If you have no experience with grammar, however, Broca's area remains relatively hard to change: you cannot learn grammatical language production later on in life. But the abilities to understand language and produce language in ways that do not rely on grammar largely make use of Wernicke's area in the temporal lope. This area is capable of expanding and rewiring throughout life—even after the teen years. The case of Genie confirms this. Grammar was beyond reach for her. But language comprehension and storytelling were not.

The takeaway of this tragic case sits well with the established idea that Wernicke's area in the brain—the area for language comprehension—absorbs various languages and meaningful signals in a unified way, whereas the Broca area—the area of the brain that is in charge of grammatical speech production—stores native (or first) languages and (second) languages learned later in life in separate areas.

Berit "Brit" Brogaard is an author of The Superhuman Mind .

Berit Brogaard, D.M.Sci., Ph.D. , is a professor of philosophy and the Director of the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research at the University of Miami.

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Genie (born April 18, 1957, Los Angeles , California , U.S.) was an American child raised in social isolation and subject to severe abuse and neglect prior to being discovered by a social worker in 1970. The child, called Genie by scientists to protect her identity, was physically underdeveloped, incontinent, barely able to walk, and unable to speak when she was discovered. Genie became the focus of a study about aspects of human development conducted by a team of psychologists and linguists.

For the first 13 years of her life, Genie was kept restrained in a small room with curtained windows and a closed door. During the day, she was harnessed naked to a toilet seat, and at night she was straitjacketed and enclosed in a covered crib with wire-mesh sides. Because her father, Clark Wiley, disliked noise, he would beat her if she made any, and he never spoke to her—only growled and made barking sounds. This was thought to have contributed to her extreme fear of dogs and cats. Her mother, Irene Wiley, diagnosed with cataracts and nearly blind, was allowed very limited interactions with Genie. Her elder brother, who was terrified of their father, became Genie’s caretaker, feeding her only baby food, cereal, and milk, which he did without talking to her, per their father’s instructions.

In 1970, while Genie’s father was out shopping for groceries, her mother took Genie to what she thought was a blindness disability benefits office. Instead, they walked into a social services office, where a social worker immediately noticed Genie’s condition and odd gait , which mimicked a rabbit’s hopping. Genie’s parents were arrested and charged with abuse. The charges against Irene Wiley were dismissed in 1975 after her attorney argued that she too was a victim of her husband’s abuse and had never been willfully cruel to Genie. Clark Wiley died by suicide shortly before he was scheduled to appear in court. Meanwhile, Genie was admitted to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on November 4, 1970.

The discovery of Genie presented a unique and timely opportunity for scientists to study whether a deprived and isolated child could mentally develop when provided an enhanced learning environment . The opportunity was unique because it would violate ethical norms for scientists to deliberately deprive a child of basic necessities in the name of research. Her discovery was timely as well, as it came in the midst of a debate over neuropsychologist Eric Lenneberg’s “critical period” hypothesis of language acquisition. His hypothesis was based on linguist Noam Chomsky ’s innateness theory, which postulated that all humans are born with a preprogrammed sense of grammar . Lenneberg suggested that if grammar was not acquired in the “critical period” before puberty , much of this preprogrammed sense of grammar would be lost, and language could only be acquired after this point with great difficulty.

In 1971 hospital staff involved in Genie’s case applied for and received a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant to fund scientific research on her and support her rehabilitation. A team led by psychologist David Rigler and including psychologist James Kent , linguist Victoria Fromkin, and linguistics graduate student Susan Curtiss was assembled to conduct the study and document Genie’s progress. One of the focal points of the study was to prove or disprove the critical period hypothesis of language acquisition.

Working with the team, Genie progressed quickly with her basic skills and was able to dress herself and use a toilet, but, although she was strong in nonverbal communication skills, she did not progress as quickly with her language skills. She had an inquisitive nature and learned and recognized many new words but spoke only single words for the first several months of her rehabilitation. She gradually began to utter two-word phrases, including, “little marble,” “big teeth,” and “want milk,” and by November 1971 she was occasionally stringing three words together. Despite efforts to teach them to her, she never understood grammatical principles .

Genie lived with multiple researchers during the study, raising questions about the balance between research and rehabilitation. Notably, she was fostered by lead researcher Rigler and his wife, Marilyn, from 1971 through 1975.

The study shed crucial light on the critical period hypothesis of language acquisition, but, because of problems with data collection, NIMH withdrew funding for research into Genie’s abilities in 1974. In 1975 Irene Wiley sued the scientists and hospital staff for overtaxing Genie with their testing practices. Researchers disputed the claim, saying that they had never pushed Genie to an unhealthy extent. Genie returned to live with Wiley in 1975, but she proved to be unable to care for her. Genie was moved to various foster homes, leading to a great deal of regression in her language abilities, especially after again facing abuse and mistreatment, this time as a ward of the state.

As of 2023, there is no public record of whether Genie is still alive, and if she is, where she is living. If she were alive, she would be 66 years old. A private investigation conducted in 2000 reportedly revealed that Genie was living in an adult care facility with subpar conditions but described her as being happy. The story of Genie’s childhood and the NIMH-funded study about her is the topic of the documentary Secret of the Wild Child (1994) and the book Genie: A Scientific Tragedy (1993) by author and journalist Russ Rymer.

Genie – The Feral Child

What do you think of when you hear the words, “feral child?” You might have come across a feral cat or feral dog at a shelter, but feral children are not anywhere near as common. They seem to only exist in stories, like The Jungle Book or Tarzan. You might be surprised to learn that not all feral children are raised in the wilderness by wolves or gorillas. Some modern cases of feral children, like the case of Genie, are still alive today. Genie’s story is one of mental health, forbidden experiments, and the failures of society to protect people who have been left behind.

Who Is Genie?

Genie was a child who was born healthy, but raised in an environment with severe neglect and abuse. Due to this, she was unable to learn how to speak and function in society. Genie is used as an example of feral child syndrome and has been studied in developmental psychology. 

Feral children may grow up in the wilderness, completely abandoned by their parents. They may also grow up in a home, like Genie did. Genie, born Susan Wiley, was born in April 1957 to parents Clark and Dorothy Wiley. Dorothy was 90% blind, and had migrated to California from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. Clark was the son of a brother owner, who had been bounced around from foster home to foster home his whole life.

Genie was born at a healthy weight and height. She had a five-year-old brother with allegedly no developmental disabilities. In her infancy, Genie appeared fairly normal. She was, however, diagnosed with a congenital hip dislocation. The issue resulted in Genie wearing a splint through her infancy and delays in walking. At the time, Genie’s father Clark believed that his child had mental disabilities, along with physical. Many psychologists believe that Clark felt that he had to protect Genie, partially explaining his horrific behavior later in Genie’s life. Others believe that Clark was delusional, spurred by intense feelings of rage and grief after the death of Clark’s mother. At 20 months old, Genie’s family moved into Clark’s mother’s home, and Genie was shielded from the world for the next 12 years.

(Her childhood home is featured on this Reddit post .)

Severe Neglect and Abuse

This isolation is what made Genie a “feral child.” During the day, Clark strapped Genie to a child’s toilet with a diaper and DIY straightjacket. At night, Genie was confined to a crib, bound by wires.

She failed to develop language, partially because she never attended formal education, but also partially because her father would growl and bark at Genie like a dog. If Genie (or any member of the family) were to make any sort of noise or fuss, Clark would beat them with a plank. Although Genie’s mother claimed that Clark would feed Genie three square meals a day, these meals consisted of baby food. Clark would spoon-feed Genie, sometimes rubbing her face in the food.

Clark ran his household like a cult, and was extremely paranoid. He continued to threaten his wife, and only allowed his son to leave the house to go to school. When his son came back to the house, he had to identify himself in various ways to be let in. Clark would sit in the living room with his shotgun on his lap, sometimes falling asleep in front of the front door with said shotgun.

When Genie’s brother was 18, he ran away from home. That year, Genie and her mother were allowed out of the house after a huge fight with Clark. Genie’s mother brought Genie into what she thought was a state office to apply for disabilities. Her near-blindness led her to the state social services office. Upon seeing Genie, who was severely malnourished and had a strange “bunny walk” (with her hands poised at her chest like a bunny,) employees thought that the girl was 6 or 7 - she was almost 14. Genie was taken into protective care and her parents were arrested.

Clark committed suicide before he could go to court and face his crimes. All charges against Genie’s mother were dropped after she cited that the abuse she suffered from Clark prevented her from being able to care for Genie. Her case made national headlines, and because she was a minor, her true name was never used in stories. Instead of Susan Wiley, the “Wild Child” became known as “Genie.”

Studies on Language Acquisition

One distinct feature of feral children is that they never develop a first language. Genie could only understand a handful of words when she first examined at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Her ability to speak was limited further. Eerily, the two phrases linguists recorded her saying were “no more” and “stop it.”

Genie became infamous not only because her case was one of the most horrific incidents of child abuse in modern history, but also because her situation was known to psychologists as a “forbidden experiment.” At the time that Genie was rescued from her parents, Noam Chomsky’s theory of innateness was popular in the linguistic psychology world. Chomsky believed that humans have an innate ability to acquire language. His theory of universal grammar appeared to support the idea that language is wired into our brains. Think nature, rather than nurture.

This theory can be supported to a degree, but experts could not prove universal grammar or innate language acquisition through experiments with children. Isolating one child from language for the sake of a psychological study, much less enough children to prove the theory, is highly unethical. Genie provided researchers a unique chance to look at the way that language is developed or stunted due to nature or nurture. From the moment that Genie was rescued, she was examined. An entire team of researchers visited her for years, sometimes on a daily basis. They monitored her brain activity, observing that she had an estimated mental age of a 5- to 8-year-old. Her linguistic development was that of a 1- or 2-year-old. She exhibited bizarre behaviors, some that could be explained by her childhood and others that appeared to have no explanation. Many questions, including that of whether she really had a mental disability like her father suggested, have gone unanswered.

This is partially due to the custody battles and ethical questions that went on throughout Genie’s later teenage years. The first “foster home” that Genie had was the home of her special education teacher, Jean Butler. Butler butted heads with the scientists who were observing Genie throughout her teenage years. Some questioned Butler’s intentions, even recalling Butler saying that Genie could make Butler “the next Anne Sullivan.” (Anne Sullivan is known for being Helen Keller’s teacher. Their story has been told in countless movies.)

David Rigler, the chief psychologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, took custody of her next. He observed her behavior and worked with her for many years. During this time, she was able to learn some sign language and communicate through drawings. But her foster care with David Rigler ended at the age of 18. Throughout her teens, Genie had been in contact with her mother. At 18, she moved back in with her mother. Genie’s father was dead, but living with her mother was not the happy ending that anyone would have hoped for. Within a year, Genie’s mother sued many of the researchers involved in Genie’s case. She claimed that the researchers had crossed boundaries, breached confidentiality agreements, and overworked Genie. The next year, her mother forbade any of the research team from interacting with or studying Genie. But she also relinquished care of Genie, leaving her to be bounced around from foster home to foster home. When the researchers did try to reach out or find Genie, they were often disappointed to hear that she was not making the progress that she had been making as a teenager.

Where Is Genie Now?

Genie is only in her 60s now. She remains a ward of the state, and has not been in direct contact with the researchers that studied and took care of her after her rescue. Investigators who looked into her well-being reported back that she was happy, and although she didn’t use much verbal communication, she did take to sign language.

Still Many Questions to Be Answered

When Genie was rescued in the 1970s, researchers jumped at the opportunity to work with a “forbidden experiment.” Their passion for the research, and their eventual attachment and care for Genie, ultimately ended in unfinished work and estrangement from Genie. To this day, one researcher has repeatedly tried to make contact with her. Many researchers were drawn to Genie’s charisma, despite her being nonverbal and developmentally delayed due to severe childhood trauma.

What does Genie’s case say about innate language acquisition? It depends on who you ask. Some say that her case is evidence for innate language acquisitions . Others argue that the case supports the critical-period hypothesis, which argues that we can “tap into” our innate ability to acquire language, but only during a specific period of development.

Nature vs. Nurture

What about nature vs. nurture ? The jury is out on this one, too. Although the cruelty and trauma endured by Genie undoubtedly slowed her development, other research argues that her developmental disabilities were also due to her genetic makeup. If she did have mental and developmental disabilities, like her father believed as an infant, the impact of his cruelty would be a less prominent factor in her delays.

Genie is far from the only case of recent feral children, but is one of the most infamous. Her case also shows that issues of ethics and great debates in psychology are more blurry than they appear on paper.

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Genie Wiley, the Feral Child

Tom Need / Getty Images

• Archaeology

• Ph.D., Psychology, Fielding Graduate University
• M.A., Psychology, Fielding Graduate University
• B.A., Film Studies, Cornell University

Genie Wiley (born April 1957) was a severely neglected and abused child who was discovered and taken into custody by authorities when she was 13 years old. While her circumstances until that point were undeniably tragic, they also presented an opportunity for psychologists, linguists, and other researchers to study psychosocial, emotional, and cognitive development in an individual who had suffered from severe social isolation and deprivation. In particular, the discovery of Genie presented an opportunity to study whether a child who was past the so-called "critical period" for language acquisition could learn to speak a first language.

Key Takeaways: Genie Wiley

• Genie Wiley was abused and neglected for over a decade until she was discovered in 1970 when she was 13 years old.
• Known as the feral child, Genie became an important subject of research. Of special interest was whether she could acquire language, as she was no longer within the "critical period" for language development.
• Genie's case presented an ethical dilemma between prioritizing her care or prioritizing research on her development.

Early Life and Discovery

The case of Genie Wiley came to light on November 4, 1970. Genie was discovered by a social worker when her mother, who was partially blind, went to apply for social services. Genie had been isolated in a small room starting at the age of 20 months until her discovery at 13 years and 9 months old. She spent most of her time naked and tied to a potty chair where she was given limited use of her hands and feet. She was completely cut off from any kind of stimulation. The windows were curtained and the door was kept closed. She was only fed cereal and baby food and wasn’t spoken to. Although she lived with her father, mother, and brother, her father and brother would only bark or growl at her and her mother was only permitted very brief interactions. Genie’s father was intolerant of noise, so no TV or radio was played in the house. If Genie made any noise, she was physically beaten.

Upon her discovery, Genie was admitted to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for evaluation. She was severely underdeveloped. She was thin and looked like a child of six or seven. She couldn’t stand up straight and could only walk with a hunched “bunny walk.” She was unable to chew, had trouble swallowing, and spat frequently. She was incontinent and mute. At first, the only words she recognized were her name and “sorry.” Testing shortly after she came to the hospital revealed that her social maturity and mental abilities were at the level of a one-year-old.

Genie didn’t walk at a normal age, so her father came to believe she was developmentally disabled. However, the researchers brought onto the case after Genie’s discovery found little evidence of this in her early history. It appeared she never suffered from brain damage, mental disability, or autism. Therefore, the impairments and developmental delays Genie exhibited upon being assessed were the result of the isolation and deprivation she was subjected to.

Both of Genie’s parents were charged with abuse , but Genie’s 70-year-old father committed suicide the day he was supposed to appear in court. The note he left said, “The world will never understand.”

The Rush to Research

Genie’s case drew media attention as well as great interest from the research community, which considered it a rare opportunity to discover whether it was possible for Genie to mentally develop after such severe deprivation. Researchers would never deliberately conduct deprivation experiments with people on moral grounds. So, Genie’s sad case was ripe for study. Genie was not the child’s real name, but the name given to the case in order to protect her privacy.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) provided funding for research and a team was assembled whose goal was to rehabilitate and study Genie’s progress. Genie soon learned basic social skills like using the toilet and dressing herself. She was fascinated by her environment and would study it intensely. She especially enjoyed visiting places outside the hospital. She was talented at nonverbal communication, but her ability to use language did not proceed rapidly. As a result, psychologist David Rigler decided to focus the research on Genie's language acquisition.

Language Acquisition

The discovery of Genie coincided with a debate about language acquisition in the scholarly community. Linguist Noam Chomsky, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claimed humans are born with an innate ability to develop language. He believed language isn’t acquired because we learn it, but because it’s part of our genetic inheritance. Then, neuropsychologist Eric Lenneberg added a caveat to Chomsky’s ideas. Lenneberg agreed that humans are born with the ability to develop language, but suggested that if a language wasn’t acquired by puberty, it might never be. Lenneberg’s proposal was called the “critical period hypothesis.” Yet, there was no ability to test the theory until Genie came along.

Within the first seven months after her discovery, Genie learned many new words . She had even begun to speak but only in single words. By July 1971, Genie could put two words together and by November she could put together three. Despite signs of progress, Genie never learned to ask questions and she didn’t seem to understand the rules of grammar.

After beginning to speak in two-word phrases, normal children experience a language “explosion” a few weeks later in which speech develops quickly. Genie never experienced such an explosion. Her speech seemed to plateau at creating two to three-word strings, despite four years of additional work and research with her.

Genie demonstrated that it’s possible for an individual to learn some language after the critical period. Yet, her inability to learn grammar, which Chomsky believed was key to human language, indicated that passing the critical period was detrimental to the complete acquisition of a first language.

Arguments and Ethical Considerations

During Genie’s treatment, there were disputes amongst the members of her team. In the early days after her discovery, she entered her first foster home with her teacher Jean Butler. Butler claimed she felt that Genie was being subject to too many tests and attempted to make changes to Genie’s treatment. She wouldn’t allow the linguist Susan Curtiss or the psychologist James Kent into her house to see Genie. Other team members claimed Butler thought she could become famous through her work with Genie and didn’t want anyone else to get credit. Butler’s application to become Genie’s permanent foster parent was rejected about a month later.

Psychologist David Rigler and his wife Marilyn stepped in and fostered Genie for the next four years. They continued to work with her and let others continue their research throughout that time. However, Genie left the Riglers’ home after NIMH stopped funding the project due to problems with data collection.

Throughout the four years in which Genie was being tested and studied, there was debate about whether she could be a research subject and a rehabilitation patient at the same time. The ethics of the situation were murky.

In 1975, Genie’s mother regained custody after being acquitted of all charges of child abuse. Genie’s care quickly became too much for her to handle, though, so Genie began to bounce from foster home to foster home. She was once again subjected to abuse in those homes. Soon, she stopped talking and refused to open her mouth entirely.

Meanwhile, Genie’s mother filed a lawsuit against Genie’s team and the Children's Hospital alleging that the researchers prioritized testing Genie over her welfare. She contended that they pushed Genie to the point of exhaustion. The case was eventually settled but the debate continues. Some believe the researchers exploited Genie, and therefore, didn’t help her as much as they could have. However, the researchers say they treated Genie to the best of their ability.

Historian and psychologist Harlan Lane points out that “there's an ethical dilemma in this kind of research. If you want to do rigorous science, then Genie's interests are going to come second some of the time. If you only care about helping Genie, then you wouldn't do a lot of the scientific research. So, what are you going to do?”

Genie Today

Genie is believed to be alive and living in an adult foster home as a ward of the state of California. While the linguist who worked with Genie, Susan Curtiss, has attempted to get in touch with her, she’s been repeatedly rebuffed. However, she said that when she calls the authorities, they inform her that Genie is well. Yet, when journalist Russ Rymer saw Genie at her 27 th birthday party, he painted a much bleaker picture. Similarly, psychiatrist Jay Shurley, who was at Genie’s 27 th and 29 th birthdays, claimed Genie was depressed and had withdrawn into herself.

• Cherry, Kendra. “Overview of Feral Child Genie Wiley.” Verywell Mind , 9 March 2019. https://www.verywellmind.com/genie-the-story-of-the-wild-child-2795241
• Pines, Maya. "The Civilizing of Genie." Teaching English Through the Disciplines: Psychology , edited by Loretta F. Kasper. Whittier Publications, 1997. http://kccesl.tripod.com/genie.html
• NOVA. "Secret of the Wild Child." PBS , 4 March, 1997. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2112gchild.html
• Fromkin, Victoria, Krashen, Stephen, Curtiss, Susan, Rigler, David, and Rigler, Marilyn. "The Development of Language in Genie: A Case of Language Acquisition Beyond the 'Critical Period'" Brain and Language , vol. 1, no. 1, 1974, pp. 81-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0093-934X(74)90027-3
• Carroll, Rory. "Starved, Tortured, Forgotten: Genie, the Feral Child Who Left a Mark on Researchers." The Guardian , 14 July 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/14/genie-feral-child-los-angeles-researchers
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Wild Child Speechless After Tortured Life

Straitjacketed for 13 years, adult "Genie" still lives a shuttered life.

May 7, 2008 — -- They called her "Genie" -- a pseudonym to protect her privacy -- because since infancy her life had been bottled up in the horrors she experienced in one dimly lit room.

Alternately tethered to a potty seat or tied up in a sleeping bag in a mesh-sided crib under a metal cover, Genie had contact only with her abusive father during nearly 12 years of confinement.

After her emergence from that torture in 1970, the waiflike child became a cause celebre among researchers and do-gooders who wanted both to learn from her and save her. For doctors, her case is like that of the three children recently released from years of isolation in an Austrian cellar.

The world read with revulsion last week the details of Austrian Josef Fritzl's 24-year imprisonment and abuse of his daughter and three of the seven children he fathered with her.

The twists of Genie's life since her release -- a succession of breakthroughs, setbacks and manipulations at the hands of caregivers, researchers and foster homes -- offer some perspective on the path ahead for the severely stunted Austrian children, who communicate mostly in simple grunts and gestures, much like Genie did after her rescue.

During the four years she was under the intense care of specialists at Children's Hospital at UCLA, Genie progressed, but only briefly.

Though she eventually learned to speak, the team of credentialed doctors with millions of dollars in federal funding could not rescue Genie from a fate of abuse and exploitation.

Doctors argued over her care and affections. Finger-pointing, hateful allegations and a lawsuit followed. Even storytellers and filmmakers took sides, and ultimately, Genie regressed.

Today Genie is 51. She is again in psychological confinement as a ward of the state -- her sixth foster home. And again, she is speechless.

"We fumbled the ball," James Kent, a consulting psychologist for the Victims of Crime program in California and Genie's psychologist told ABCNEWS.com. "We had the opportunity to allow more of her potential. It was as much out of ignorance as disagreements."

Genie's story began 20 months after her birth in 1957. Believing she was mentally retarded, Clark Wiley locked his daughter away, separating her from her nearly blind mother and 6-year-old brother, under the guise of protecting her.

Wiley spoon-fed her only Pablum and milk, and spoke to her mostly in barks and growls. He beat her with a wooden paddle every time she uttered a sound.

In 1970, Genie's 50-year-old mother, Irene, escaped with Genie, then 13. Her brother, John, then 18, was left behind, and told ABCNEWS.com that he, too, had been abused at the hands of his father -- a man who was raised by a "bar girl" in a bordello and didn't "pamper or baby."

Mother and child turned up at welfare offices in Los Angeles, seeking financial support. Caseworkers noticed the odd child, who spat and clawed and moved in a jerky "bunny walk," with her hands held out front.

The Wileys were charged with child abuse, but the day they were to appear in court, Clark Wiley shot himself to death after reportedly leaving a note that read: "The world will never understand."

John Wiley, now 56 and a housepainter in Ohio, admitted he had often been in the room where Genie was tortured. "Whether I liked what I seen or not, it wasn't like I was in a position to tell my mom. I was a captive audience and could do nothing about it."

When she entered Children's Hospital at the age of 14 -- still in diapers -- Genie was the size of an 8-year-old with the language and motor skills of a baby, speaking only a few words -- including "stopit" and "nomore."

Her discovery coincided with the premiere of Francois Truffaut's film "The Wild Child," about an 18th century French "wolf boy" and the doctor who adopted and tried to civilize him.

Riveted during a private showing of the film, the staff assigned to Genie's care applied for a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study Genie's rehabilitation.

The hottest academic issue of the day was the 1967 Lenneberg theory that maintained that children cannot learn language after puberty. In some ways, Genie disproved this, but she had passed the "critical period" and was never able to master grammatical structure.

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History Uncovered Episode 36: Genie Wiley, The ‘Feral Child’

In one of the most infamous cases of child abuse in modern American history, Genie Wiley was isolated and terrorized for 13 years before she was finally rescued from her father's horrifying clutches.

In October 1970, a woman walked into a Los Angeles welfare office with a child at her side. The woman had walked into the wrong room — she was looking for services for the blind — but the girl who was with her caught the welfare workers’ attention. They didn’t know it yet, but one of the worst victims of child abuse in U.S. history had just walked through their door.

The girl, who appeared to be seven or eight years old, was actually 13, but clearly malnourished and undersized. She had a fluttering, unfocused gaze, she couldn’t speak, and she walked only in a strange bunny hop.

Soon, authorities discovered that this girl — since given the alias Genie Wiley in case files — had spent most of her life up until that point bound and locked away in isolation, either chained to a training toilet or confined in a crib-like cage. From the time she was an infant, her father had subjected her to this severe abuse; meanwhile, her mother simply ignored it.

Wikimedia Commons Genie Wiley was returned to foster care after the research on her ended. She regressed in these environments and never regained speech.

Believing Genie to be mentally disabled, her father locked her away and forbade anyone from engaging with her in any way. He tied her naked to a potty chair or threw her into a crib covered with chicken wire. Genie’s father deprived her of stimulation or affection, beat her with a wooden board, and fed her only milk or Pablum, a processed cereal for babies.

After welfare workers rescued her, Genie became a case study for researchers at UCLA’s Children’s Hospital. They studied how the abuse had impacted her, attempted to see if she had the capability to learn and speak, and began to care deeply for this fragile teenager.

Eventually, Genie the “feral child” started to get better. She even started communicating in halting, choppy phrases about her abusive father, saying:

“Father hit arm. Big wood. Genie cry… Not spit. Father. Hit face — spit. Father hit big stick. Father is angry. Father hit Genie big stick. Father take piece wood hit. Cry. Father make me cry.”

But these years in the hands of researchers and doctors offered only a reprieve — not an escape — from the nightmare that was Genie’s life. Eventually, conflict would tear her care team apart and Genie would be sent to foster care, then to adult home care. Today, she’s a ward of the state of California, her whereabouts and condition unknown to the public.

Discover the full story behind the tragic life of Genie Wiley .

Learn more about the music used in our podcast. History Uncovered is part of the Airwave Media network . Learn more about your ad choices by visiting megaphone.fm/adchoices .

PO Box 24091 Brooklyn, NY 11202-4091

"Genie" The Story of the Wild Child, 1970

Introduction.

Text-to-speech Audio

The last known picture of Genie Wiley.

The Bed and toilet Genie was strapped to.

Genie Wiley

The house where young Genie Wiley was abused and isolated.

Backstory and Context

Genie Wiley was born in 1957 and at 20 months her father Clark Wiley took her into his care keeping her from her partially blind mother and 6-year-old brother. Clark thought she was mentally disabled and locked her in a room with windows covered by aluminum foil and provided only food and water. With no human interaction or contact with the outside world, Genie spoke rarely and could only make unintelligible sounds when she was discovered. Clark Wiley beat his daughter with a one-by-three-foot board nearly every time she uttered a sound. Genie was also strapped to a child’s toilet chair and a crib with a chicken wire lid for multiple hours.

Genie was 13 when, on November 4th, 1970, her condition was discovered when her mother brought her daughter to a welfare office for help in Los Angeles. Genie could not speak, had the language and physical skills of a baby, and crawled on the floor like a baby. After inspections by the healthcare professionals, they concluded that she had the physical development of an 8-year-old and weighed only 59 pounds. Clark and her mother were charged with child abuse, but the day before court Clark committed suicide leaving a note saying, "the world will never understand." Charges against the mother were dropped because she did not know of the abuse.

In 1970 Genie, studied and the resulting case study is known as the “Developmental Consequence of Extreme Social Isolation.”  She was under the care of Dr. David Rigler at a children’s hospital in Los Angeles which is where she celebrated her 14th birthday. By 1974, resources for tests and donations for her care became less frequent, and she was placed with a series of foster parents. By age 18, Genie was able to communicate with sign language, and this is when much of the physical abuse that researchers suspected was confirmed. Genie’s mother regained custody of her when she turned 18 but like many others, she returned Genie to the care of the state. 

Additional Information

• Information on Child Abuse from Stanford University Medical Center

• Genie Wiley Walking In Freedom

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Genie Wiley: A Story of Abuse, Rescue, and Lingering Questions

• by Psychologs Magazine
• January 9, 2024
• 5 minutes read

People who are passionate about the academic discipline of psychology will surely be aware of the multiple controversial experiments that have been conducted throughout its history. Most of these experiments had ethical and moral considerations. Some of the most infamous and unethical experiments that psychologists have ever designed and implemented include the Little Albert Experiment, Milgram’s Prison experiment etc.

Through this article, however, we are delving deep, not into an unethical experiment that was conducted by the pioneers of the discipline, but rather into the intricacies of a case study that turned eyes towards the fate of feral children. Genie Wiley was a feral child who was raised with no human contact and was forced to spend over a decade locked and abused in her bedroom and was later rescued. Hers became the first case to be used to test the critical period theory in developmental psychology. To understand her case, we need to delve deep into the nuances of her life story.

Read More: The Psychology Behind Morality

The Case of Genie Wiley

Genie’s existence before her discovery was one of complete deprivation. She spent the majority of her days strapped naked to a potty chair, only able to move her hands and feet. When she made a noise, her father beat her. Her father’s interactions with her were limited to barking or growling. Genie’s narrative was revealed on November 4, 1970, in Los Angeles, California. A social worker discovered the 13-year-old kid when her mother sought help for her health. The social worker discovered that the girl had been confined to a small room, and an investigation by authorities swiftly revealed that the youngster had spent the majority of her life in this room, often tied to a potty chair. Both of Genie’s parents were charged in court for abuse.

Read More: Understanding the Role of Psychiatric Social Workers

However, Genie’s father committed suicide the day before his scheduled court appearance, leaving behind a note that said, “The world will never understand.” The tale of Genie’s case quickly spread, gaining attention from both the general public and the scholarly world. Harlan Lane, PhD, who was an author and a renowned psycholinguist later quoted this case to be groundbreaking and highly significant for research in the discipline since “our morality does not allow us to conduct deprivation experiments on humans; these unfortunate people are all we have to go on.”

Read More: Suicide Awareness: Unveiling the Truth

Her State After Being Rescued

Her rehabilitation team noted that when Genie first arrived at UCLA, she weighed only 59 pounds and moved with a weird “bunny walk.” She spat frequently and was unable to straighten her arms and legs. She was silent, incontinent, and unable to eat at first, appearing to recognize only her name and the word “sorry.” They described Genie as “the most profoundly damaged child I’ve ever seen,” based on her emotional and cognitive capacities. “Genie’s life is a wasteland.”

Her quietness and inability to communicate made it difficult to judge her mental capacities, but on tests, she performed at the level of a one-year-old. She quickly progressed in certain areas, learning how to use the toilet and dress herself. Over the next three months, she made more developmental gains, but her verbal skills remained weak. She adored going on day outings outside of the hospital and exploring her new surroundings with the zeal that astounded her carers and outsiders alike. The theories of nativism and that of the earlier mentioned critical period come up into question as soon as we discuss Genie’s case. Nativism is a renowned theory in psychology that believes and propagates that language or the ability to handle language present in human beings is innate for every individual.

While various behaviourists, during those days of the discipline development claimed that language is learnt through the various proposed models of learning, nativists like Noam Chomsky, who was also a linguist, argued that acquiring language in human beings is an innate process, i.e., each person is born with a language acquisition device that would aid them completely in acquiring and using the language. Once the child at a young age is exposed to their mother tongue or any other language for that matter, the Language Acquisition Device that they are mentally equipped with would completely take over the process of language.

Linguist Eric Lenneberg contends that, like many other human behaviours, the ability to acquire language is subject to critical periods. A critical period is a limited period during which an organism is sensitive to external stimuli and capable of learning specific skills. According to Lenneberg, the key time for language acquisition lasts until approximately age 12. He argued that once puberty sets in, the brain’s organization becomes fixed, and it is no longer capable of learning and using language fully functionally. Despite scoring at the level of a one-year-old on her initial evaluation, Genie quickly expanded her vocabulary.

She began by memorizing individual words and gradually progressed to combining two words. Following a year of treatment, she began to form three-word sentences on occasion. In children undergoing normal language development, this stage is followed by a language explosion. Unfortunately, this never occurred to Genie. Her language skills were stalled at this point, and she appeared unable to apply grammatical principles or utilize language in a meaningful way. Her progress stalled at this time, and her learning of a new language came to an end. This provides great evidence for the propagation of critical period theory.

The National Institute of Mental Health which had earlier provided the funds to the rehabilitation team to conduct scientific research to comprehend the linguistic and developmental intricacies of Genie’s life, now retrieved the funds once and for all in 1974, given the fact that there were no much scientific findings. Further, it was found that the main researcher under which Genie was left to be “studied”, a renowned linguist Susan Curtiss, had conducted her research in a disorganized and anecdotal manner which was not quite useful in addition to the required scientific findings.

In 1975, Genie went back to live with her birth mother. When her mother found the work too tough, Genie was placed in a series of foster homes, where she was frequently subjected to additional cruelty and neglect. Genie’s circumstances worsened. She returned to Children’s Hospital after being in foster care for a long time. Unfortunately, the progress made during her first stay was greatly hampered by the subsequent treatment she got in foster care. Genie was terrified to speak and had relapsed into silence.

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https://www.verywellmind.com/genie-the-story-of-the-wild-child-2795241

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Where is Genie Wiley now? The Secrets about her Healthcare exposed

• by Chege Karomo
•  – on Jan 24, 2022
•  in Extra

When Genie Wiley and her mother mistakenly walked into a Los Angeles County welfare office, the child’s appearance petrified everyone present. Genie stooped and walked like a rabbit, couldn’t control her bowel movements, and had a rare dental condition that caused the growth of two sets of teeth. Many suspected autism, but a deeper investigation uncovered gruesome horrors.

Genie – a fake name given to hide her identity – had been the subject of abuse at the hands of her father for more than a decade. Her insane father had kept her in isolation since she was 20 months old, apparently believing that she was mentally retarded. Every attempt by Genie to make a noise met stern punishment and rebuke.

The location of the over 60-year-old Genie remains a closely guarded secret

A year after Genie’s discovery, she was placed under the care of foster parents David Rigler and his wife Marilyn. For five years, the National Institute of Mental Health funded her stay with David before withdrawing funding due to mismanagement of the case. The Riglers ended their care for Genie, later stating in a 1994 NOVA documentary that they assumed that the foster care arrangement was ‘temporary.’

Genie’s placement in foster care homes proved detrimental to her development. In 1977, she detailed in sign language how one of her foster parents punished her for vomiting. Despite this, she returned to foster care until she turned 18, when authorities placed her in an adult care home. The name of the facility is unknown, and the private foundation responsible for her care refuses to divulge the information. 

Irene Wiley, Genie’s mother, obtained legal guardianship for her daughter, but Genie had already been placed in a home. Russ Rymer, a journalist, painted a bleak picture of Genie’s condition during her 27th birthday. He wrote :

“A large, bumbling woman with a facial expression of cowlike incomprehension… her eyes focus poorly on the cake. Her dark hair has been hacked off raggedly at the top of her forehead, giving her the aspect of an asylum inmate.”

Jay Shurley, a professor present at Genie’s 29th birthday, offered a similarly somber assessment: “It was heartrending.” Attempts to contact Genie are routinely rebuffed by authorities.  The Guardian  received the following response after asking to see Genie:

“If ‘Genie’ is alive, information relating to her is confidential and it does not meet the criteria of information that is available through a PRA Request. We would suggest that you contact Los Angeles County with your request.”

Mental health authorities didn’t reply to a query sent by LA County. Susan Curtiss, a UCLA professor who formed a bond with Genie, has similarly been unsuccessful in her attempts to contact or see Genie. Curtiss is, however, confident that Genie is alive. She told  The Guardian  that the last time she saw Genie was in the 80s:

“I am not in touch with her, but not by my choice. They never let me have any contact with her. I’ve become powerless in my attempts to visit her or write to her. I long to see her. There is a hole in my heart and soul from not being able to see her that doesn’t go away.”

Wrangles between scientists and Genie’s caregivers led to withdrawal of funding for her care

Genie’s appearance from the blue baffled and excited scientists at the same time. The scientists had a specimen that they could use to test the 1967 Lenneberg theory that claimed that children couldn’t learn after puberty. They put Genie through brain scans and countless tests to try to understand Genie’s cognitive abilities. 

However, some saw Genie as more than a science experiment – as a human being in need of love and care. And then there were the outliers, like Jean Butler, a rehabilitation teacher who saw in Genie an opportunity to gain fame. Eventually, the caregivers and scientists pushed aside Jean Butler and saw Genie make a stunning recovery. 

Genie learned to play, dress, and enjoy music. She sketched pictures, learned words, and sign language to communicate. She also performed admirably in intelligence tests. Susan Curtiss told  The Guardian :

“Language and thought are distinct from each other. For many of us, our thoughts are verbally encoded. For Genie, her thoughts were virtually never verbally encoded, but there are many ways to think. She was smart. She could hold a set of pictures so they told a story. She could create all sorts of complex structures from sticks. She had other signs of intelligence. The lights were on.”

Genie started to attend nursery school, further broadening her vocabulary. However, the wrangles between scientists about the best course for her care and development caused inconsistencies in her records, forcing the National Institute of Mental Health to withdraw funding. 

In 1979, Irene Wiley sued the hospital and her children’s caregivers for allegedly using Genie for ‘prestige and profit’ and excessive testing. The suit was settled in 1984, and Susan Curtiss, perhaps the most innocent caregiver of them all, was banned from seeing Genie. “Genie had so my losses, and here she was losing the one person who had remained in her life ever since I met her,” Susan told  ABC News .

The widely accepted conclusion is that Genie’s scientist caregivers failed her, all except for Susan Curtiss. Harry Bromley-Davenport, a filmmaker who extensively interviewed Susan Curtiss, told  ABC News : 

“Susie is the only absolute angel in this whole horrifying saga. She is an extraordinary person. The greatest tragedy was Genie being abandoned after all the attention. She disappointed the scientists, and they all folded their tent and left when the money went away – all except Susie.”

Genie’s family suffered tragic fates after the saga ended

Genie’s father, Clark Wiley, never wanted to have children, but after marrying Irene Oglesby, the children came – and died. Their first baby died after being left in a cold garage and the second from birth complications. The third child, John, survived but suffered under the care of an abusive further. He fled home to live with his grandmother, who died in 1958 following a tragic accident. 

John returned home to find a little sister, Genie. His grandmother’s death seemed to unlock a new level of cruelty in Clark. He locked Genie in a lifeless basement, and when he came to feed her, he beat her every time she made a noise. John endured regular beatings from Clark, including blows to his testicles inflicted to make him sterile. 

Clark, in a move of extreme cowardice, killed himself before his trial. “The world will never understand,” his suicide note read. “Be a good boy, I love you,” Clark wrote in a second note addressed to John. In the aftermath of Genie’s discovery, authorities neglected John and the struggles he went through. Frank Linely, the detective in charge of the case, told  ABC News  that it was a mistake to ignore John:

“John was as much a victim of the family dynamics as the younger sister was. But he was so little a part of the direction of the case. Unfortunately, we never really paid attention to him. The case comes back to haunt me.”

John left the Los Angeles area for rural Ohio and only saw his mother once before her death in 2003. After the death, he shunned everything to do with Genie and his family, but he can never completely forget it. “I have forgiven, but I can’t forget,” he said. 

Despite his father’s best efforts, John ended up having a daughter with his wife. “I was afraid to have kids because of my upbringing,” he said. His daughter turned to crack cocaine for solace after John’s marriage with his wife ended. She was, consequently, unable to take care of John’s two granddaughters. However, John told  ABC News  that he still retains optimism:

“They didn’t give me the tools, the knowledge about accomplishment and setting goals and the Bible and God. I feel at times God failed me. Maybe I failed him. But it’s never too late.”

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Genie the Wild Child Analysis & Behavior

• Genie the Wild Child Analysis…

Developmental Issues

Genie is socially, cognitively and physically developmentally delayed.  Due to her severe isolation she has never learned to vocalize. Although she can visualize it is as if she has no sight due to the severe confinement she experienced. She displays physical oddities including walking like a bunny and spitting, due to her incapability to chew.

For these ten years of solitary internment, Genie lived a severely malnourished lifestyle. Improper meals were forced into her body prohibiting Genie from cognitive and physical growth. Abused and unloved, this tragic and strange case illustrates the extreme importance of critical and sensitive periods.

The critical and sensitive periods indicate the ideal time frame for language and motor development, after which further development becomes more difficult and effortful to acquire.  Genie was isolated for the first ten years of her life; these are the most crucial years for developing ‘normally’.

Nature and Nurture

Human beings need nurture in order to develop their full potential. Nature happens organically but nurture is how humans develop their personality, behaviour and intelligence. Humans are hardwired by nature and have the capability to develop fully but are restricted if proper nurture is not given. 

The time and attention that is essential for proper development was absent for most of Genies childhood. All humans are biologically given the capability to acquire a new language, but Genie, at 13 years of age, can barely utter or understand a word. This indicates that although certain cognitive and behavioral skills are hardwired (nature), they must be enriched through the practice of loving and caring nurture.

Can anything be done to Help Genie?

Genie requires human contact and schooling. She needs to have psychological counseling and occupational rehabilitation to learn how to do simple tasks, such as eating, walking and speaking. Genie missed her most sensitive periods for functional development. Fortunately, for Genie language and motor acquisition can still be learned but at a slower pace than most 13-year-olds.

There is hope that Genie will be able to function as a normal individual, but that day is somewhere down the road. The critical and sensitive periods indicate the ideal time frame for language and motor development, after which further development becomes more difficult and effortful to acquire. There is hope that Genie will be able to function as a normal individual, but that day is somewhere down the road.

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Genie was never a ‘wild child’. A so-called ‘wild child’ is a child abandoned, separated from her/his parents or orphaned, then ‘brought up’ (i.e cared for and fed) by ‘wild animals’, the most prominent being dogs or wolves. Genie was purposefully neglected and abused by a domineering father. Genie was never ‘mentally retarded’ either. It is clear from details of her history that, had she spent her early years in a comparatively ‘normal’ household, she might have grown up to be a beautiful, clever and accomplished woman. The recordings we have of her clearly show her beauty and charisma. Unfortunately, she fell victim to something called ‘modern scientific psychology’ (whatever that is) and a domineering and vindictive mother. The world lost a really cool human being…

she was abused

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Genie : a psycholinguistic study of a modern-day "wild child"

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The “Feral” Child Strapped to a Chair For 13 Years

What happens when a child is locked away from the world without any social interactions or education? What happens to a child that is raised in isolation and abuse, with little access to the outside world?

For Genie Wiley, these awful hypotheticals were very real.

She lived in near-total isolation. She was deprived of human connection and was stripped of the ability to communicate. Genie was a victim of horrible abuse for the first 13 years of her life.

Strapped to a chair by her father, her existence was hidden from the world for over a decade.

By delving into the tragic and heartbreaking details of her life, Genie Wiley’s story provides invaluable insights into the cognitive development of children. It shows the severe impact such conditions can have on their growth and well-being.

Her story gained the attention of a team of researchers who studied her extensively for years after. Through these studies, they learned a great deal about language, social development, and the intricacies of human behavior.

But her saga is one of tragedy and neglect. 

An Abusive, Torturous Childhood

Born in 1957, Genie Wiley had a traumatic childhood marked by severe abuse and neglect.

In the years before her birth, her father had an abusive, deadly streak. This caused, both directly and indirectly, the deaths of some of her siblings.

At just 20 months old, Genie was confined to a small bedroom by her father. He tied her to a makeshift harness – which was more like a straitjacket – for almost 13 hours a day. 

She was dressed in just a diaper and could hardly move. At night, her father would put her in a crib with a metal screen and tie down her arms and legs. 

If Genie made any noise, her father would beat her, growl at her like a dog , and scratch her with his fingernails. Her father was clearly mentally ill and his behavior only furthered Genie’s quickly deteriorating mental condition.

Additionally, her father hardly fed her. She only ate baby food, cereal, and the occasional soft-boiled egg. He sometimes rubbed her face in her food if she choked. He refused to give her solid food. 

She was mostly malnourished throughout her entire childhood.

Genie’s father also reportedly had a low tolerance for noise. He forbade anyone in the household to talk and kept the house nearly totally silent. Except for a few toys, there was little to do.

He kept the family confined in the house and allowed no visitors. He went so far as to sit in the living room with a shotgun to discourage any disobedience.

Genie’s father was an abusive, unwell individual who reaped untold harm not just on Genie, but on the entire family. However, little Genie Wiley would experience the worst. This would lead to lasting trauma and developmental issues.

Authorities Take Control

On the 4th of November, 1970, Genie’s mother went out to apply for disability benefits for the blind. She brought Genie with her. She happened to mistakenly stumble into the social services center next door.

The social worker who greeted them immediately knew something was wrong with little Genie.

They were shocked to see the girl’s disheveled appearance and “feral” manners. They estimated her to be around six or seven years old and possibly autistic. But when her mother confirmed her age, authorities were immediately brought in.

Both parents were charged with abuse. Genie’s father died by suicide the day before his court appearance.

Genie then became a ward of the state. On account of her physical condition and near-total unsocialized state, a court order was immediately issued for her to be taken to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

There she was assigned to therapist and psychiatry experts David Rigler and Howard Hansen. 

Her father’s suicide and subsequent media attention quickly brought her case to the national spotlight. Her mother was also brought to court, but the charges against her were eventually dropped.

The case of “Genie Wiley” – a pseudonym that was implemented to protect her identity – was considered to be of the utmost interest by medical experts. 

It was a rare case that could hopefully shed light on the effects of extreme deprivation and isolation on human development.

A team of psychologists and language experts immediately began the process of rehabilitating Genie. Significant funding was provided for scientific research on her case.

Genie’s Physical and Psychological State: A “Feral” Child

As a result of the trauma Genie endured at the hands of her father, she suffered from a range of physical, emotional, and cognitive injuries. This included malnourishment, developmental delays, language deprivation, and severe social isolation.

All told, this resulted in dire consequences for her overall physical and psychological health.

Because her father kept her locked up in a room for over a decade with minimal physical stimulation, she was completely prevented from learning how to read, write, or even speak.

Even after her rescue at 13 years old, Genie was unable to learn how to speak or engage in meaningful communication with others. This led to her developing nonverbal communication skills as a means of expression.

The doctors who examined Genies found her to be physically underdeveloped and mentally unresponsive. She had limited motor skills and signs of autism. Some would compare her condition to being “feral.”

She struggled to express herself and find her voice. She often used physical gestures and nonverbal expressions to convey basic needs and wants. Her isolation was so profound that she could not recognize herself in a mirror, even after being rescued.

Over time, Genie started making significant progress toward her cognitive and emotional recovery. She developed some nonverbal communication skills and eventually socialized with a few caretakers.

Her progress was continually hindered as she was relocated time and time again. She went through various foster homes where she suffered from further abuse. This only eroded any newfound social skills and mental health.

Genie’s journey is a quintessential example of how severe social isolation and abuse can lead to lifelong consequences. 

Interest and Research From the Scientific Community

When Genie Wiley’s case came to light, it drew significant attention from the scientific community. 

It was the case of a child who was severely neglected and abused. She had survived in almost complete isolation for so long and this provided researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to study the nature of human development.

Specifically, the information that could be gleaned on language acquisition and cognitive growth was seen to be crucial. Linguists, psychologists, and other scientists descended upon UCLA, hoping to learn something from studying Genie.

By December 1970, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) even provided funding for the research.

The purpose was to understand the impact of her isolation. There was a belief at the time that if a critical period for language acquisition did exist, analyzing someone who had never learned language could help identify critical periods in language development.

Researchers attempted to teach her English. They hoped to discover how dependent language acquisition is on genetics and how much is reliant on the environment.

Genie took to playing with puppets and other toys. After many weeks, she began to try mimicking the sounds of her doctors.

As researchers studied Genie, she slowly made considerable progress, although some milestones were challenging. 

She developed some non-verbal communication skills. But it became clear that Genie did not yet possess any ability to speak, read, or write at all.

She made some progress in terms of learning words and using basic grammar. But Genie’s inability to acquire full language capacity was deemed a disappointment by researchers.

By mid-1975, at the age of 18, research funds were drying up. Genie was allowed to move back home with her mother, although this was not meant to last.

Several medical aspects of Genie’s case are still debated today, decades later. Early study of human development would not have been possible without the unique environment in which she was raised.

However, Genie’s situation posed many other questions about the ethics of such research, as she was sometimes more or less treated like a research subject than a person.

Genie’s Progress and Rehabilitation

Genie’s progress and rehabilitation were somewhat remarkable given the extent of the damage she suffered. She initially struggled to communicate and often remained silent. But as the rehabilitation process continued, she learned to play, dress herself, and even communicate through pictures. 

She arguably displayed high levels of intelligence. She could create complex structures out of sticks and other materials, and she could convey a story using a set of pictures.

It was also apparent that there were some limitations to her language acquisition. Despite the progress, Genie struggled with forming words into coherent sentences.

Susan Curtiss and David Rigler, two of the researchers most invested in Genie’s rehabilitation, found that her vocabulary was largely limited to her name and about 15-20 other words.

Despite some limitations in language acquisition, Genie’s rehabilitation did provide examples of significant progress in the face of intense adversity. Her social abilities improved while her outbursts and tantrums decreased.

However, the rehabilitation process was not without conflict and controversy. The researchers and caretakers constantly clashed with one another. This created tension that ultimately impeded the progress of the case. It limited the prospect of any “Helen Keller style” breakthrough. 

Most importantly, the tensions only hurt Genie in the end. She was forced to be shuttled between hospitals, multiple foster homes, and many different caretakers and guardians throughout her younger years.

Living Arrangements, Legal Issues, and Custody Battles

Throughout her life, Genie Wiley experienced numerous living arrangements. She lived with complicated custody battles, quarantines, and personal conflicts between those involved in her care. 

In 1971, Jean Butler, one of her teachers, hoped to gain custody of Genie. But hospital staff was skeptical of her intentions and tried to limit her access. 

Genie was later sent to live with the Rigler family, the family of one of the researchers looking after her. She stayed there for nearly four years. By all accounts, she seemed to enjoy the classical music and activities they provided for her.

Despite the relative stability of her life with the Rigler family, Genie’s situation continued to be characterized by instability and frequent moves.

After a brief stint living with her mother, who found caring for her too difficult, she was placed in foster homes. Here, she suffered from more abuse and neglect. She was moved through at least four additional foster homes and institutions from 1978 until the 1990s. 

From here, Genie’s story becomes muddied and difficult to follow. In 1993, one of her former researchers told the media that she was living comfortably in a state institution and was doing well.

All told, Genie likely moved through a dozen or so living situations over the years. This situation undoubtedly contributed to the developmental difficulties Genie faced throughout her life.

Genie’s Later Years

As of 2016, Genie Wiley has been living in an undisclosed location under the care of the state of California. Her brother kept away from her life until just before a recent public interview where he told reporters that he heard she was doing well.

Investigators who located her anonymously reported that she lived a simple and happy life in a small private facility. Though she only spoke a few words, she reportedly communicated well in sign language.

Despite the positive report of her condition, researchers who worked with her have told reporters of their deep heartbreak. They also feel unresolved grief both about her early life and their inability to stay in contact with her. 

Curtiss, one of Genie’s closest researchers, had never been allowed to reconnect with her, leaving her feeling powerless to help her. The case had such a profound impact on some of the researchers involved that they found it difficult to confront the anguish it stirred up inside of them. 

Genie’s life is a reminder that even when great strides are made in someone’s rehabilitation, the trauma of the past can last forever.

Carroll, Rory. “Starved, Tortured, Forgotten: Genie, the Feral Child Who Left a Mark on Researchers.” The Guardian, July 14, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/14/genie-feral-child-los-angeles-researchers .

Cherry, Kendra. “The Story of Genie, a Child Deprived of Nearly All Human Contact.” Verywell Mind, October 28, 2022. https://www.verywellmind.com/genie-the-story-of-the-wild-child-2795241 .

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Genie Wiley: Haunting story of feral child found mute and hopping like rabbit

For 12 years, Genie Wiley was imprisoned in the second bedroom of her California home by her dad Clark because he suspected she was mentally disabled

• 10:35, 6 Mar 2019
• Updated 14:01, 6 Mar 2019

Genie Wiley hopped and held her hands in front of her like a rabbit when she was discovered by social services.

She was 13 but had the mental age of a baby and after thorough examinations, experts said she demonstrated the most severe case of child abuse on record.

The teenager was mute and could not chew so instead held food in her mouth until saliva broke it down.

Regardless of where she was she constantly spat, sniffing and blowing her nose on anything that happened to be nearby.

Genie occasionally touched herself intimately without caring who was near and, despite getting upset and angry, she never cried.

The 13-year-old showed understanding of only her own name and two phrases - "stop it" and "no more".

She was abnormally pale, grossly malnourished and the lead her father kept her on had caused a thick, bruised callus to form on her backside.

The case of Genie the "feral child" became known to the world as one of the most horrific examples of child abuse and neglect ever uncovered in the United States.

From 1958, she had been imprisoned in the second bedroom of her family home by her dad, Clark Wiley, because he suspected she was mentally disabled.

After Genie's rescue in 1970, Clark was discovered to be a controlling man who hated noise and did not want children.

His first child died after being left in a cold garage and a second from birth complications.

A third, a boy named John, survived, followed five years later by the girl who would become known as Genie.

According to researchers, Clark did not speak to her and he instructed her wife, Irene, and son John to do the same.

From 20-months-old, Genie had been strapped into a handmade straightjacket and tied to a potty chair in a silent room during the day.

At night, she was locked inside a cot with a wire cover and fed almost entirely on liquids.

Clark growled and barked at his daughter like a dog and if she made a noise, he beat her with a stick.

Irene, stricken by fear and poor eyesight, finally fled the house of horrors in 1970.

Plagued by cataracts, she mistakenly blundered into the wrong welfare office seeking a disability pension and a social worker spotted Genie.

She seemed unsteady on her feet, her limbs jerked and she held her hands in front of her body like a rabbit.

Clark Wiley was charged over their treatment of his daughter but killed himself on the day of his trial.

According to The Guardian he left behind a note that read: "The world will never understand."

The girl's story was told in newspapers and TV bulletins around the world, and later sparked an Emmy-winning documentary, Secret of the Wild Child.

Scientific researchers also flocked around the feral child and Genie's status soon changed from welfare case to case study.

After a long hospital stay, she was moved through a series of foster homes as experts continued to monitor her growth and behaviour.

It is not publicly known where Genie is now.

It was reported in 2016 that she was living in a state care facility, approaching her 60th birthday.

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“Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child”: The Documentary Analysis

Genie was a federal child who, for thirteen years since her birth, had been extremely deprived of any form of emotional, moral, and social attachments. Neglected for thirteen years, Genie had no human contact, social behavior, or exposure to any human language. The girl was found in a small room, where she spent most of her time tied to her child’s toilet. The federal child who would be known as Genie was discovered in Los Angeles, California, around 1970. During this time, there were significant debates in the field of psychology. Although the experiment conducted on Genie has been deemed unethical, it ended some of the major psychological disputes regarding the language acquisition process.

One of the major questions involving “Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child” documentary is whether or not her behaviors had been inherited or influenced by her environment. Children need to be exposed to affection, human contact, and interaction in order for them to develop a strong sense of self. As such, the early stages of development are essential to every child’s growth. Children often socialize with micro-level members at an early age. Genie’s case is of profound importance as it shows the results when some fundamental levels of development are absent.

In general, nurture entails helping someone develop particular aspects which are essential to them. Human beings require support in order to develop their full potential. In other words, nurture plays a critical role in enhancing human behavior, personality, and intelligence. Hardwired by nature, humans have the capacity to develop fully; however, their growth is stifled when support is not provided. Genie was deprived of attention and time during her childhood, which are essential aspects of proper development. Humans are naturally capable of acquiring a new language, but Genie could hardly utter any word at thirteen. This phenomenon indicates that even though particular behavioral and cognitive abilities are naturally hardwired, they are enhanced by care and love.

The evidence that supports the importance of language acquisition in a child’s development is usually found in the rare cases of children who were not exposed to a language at an early age. A case example is Genie, who spent most of her early years in isolation. Genie’s imprisonment made it impossible for her to be exposed to social conversations. Although she later learned to utter a few words, Genie did not have enhanced cognitive abilities to acquire a full language. It was hard for her to fully acquire a language since she had not mastered the first language. As a result, Genie’s story supports the critical period hypothesis proposed by Noam Chomsky. Psychologists posit that effective learning of a language must happen before puberty (Mohamad & Rashid, 2018). Genie learned new utterances with trouble, and could not intelligently put them together to convey information.

One of the most significant theories used to educate Genie was Bandura’s social-cognitive learning theory. This theory maintains that humans can learn by observing other humans and deciding which behavior to mimic (Bandura, 2019). It also indicates that rewarded behaviors are more likely to be repeated and vice-versa. According to this theory, role models, especially teachers, are often imitated by their students (Bandura, 2019). This evidence is manifested in the case of Genie, who did not get the privilege to learn a language. Genie, however, would get the opportunity to perform simple tasks on her own such as taking a bath.

Further, Genie was able to learn by observing other people’s behaviors. Her ability to recall the behavior of those teaching her was remarkable. After reproducing the behavior, Genie would find a stimulus to repeat the action. For example, in a particular video of Genie’s teaching, she was caught watching her teacher’s actions. When asked to repeat the behavior, she did and received applause (Nilsen, 2017). It was easy to teach Genie using Bandura’s social-cognitive learning theory since it involved effective participation.

Several theories have been formulated to explain the stages of development in children. These theories can be classified as moral, emotional, or cognitive. Lawrence Kohlberg developed most moral development theories, while Erik Erikson advanced the emotional development theories. Jean Piaget, on the other hand, is attributed to the most common cognitive development theories. According to Turiel (2018), Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development comprises pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional stages. Kohlberg noticed that children start to discern right from wrong at the age of three years as a function of external punishment. As espoused by Kohlberg, a child reaches the conventional moral development level by the age of nine (Turiel, 2018). The conventional stage is marked by the child’s ability to see molarity as an integral part of society. At around nine years, they develop a belief that it is necessary to maintain positive relationships (Turiel, 2018). Genie, who spent thirteen years in confinement, did not have exposure to her environment. As such, her case falls under the pre-conventional stage of moral development, in which an action is judged based on the repercussions.

Additionally, Erikson studied both children and adults and classified them into various stages: love, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom. According to Erikson’s theory, Genie is at the fidelity stage. Eriksen posits that if infants cannot trust adults, they tend to grow up lacking trust, a fundamental aspect of emotional development (Jones & Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). This stage of development explains why Genie would feel insecure around other people. Moreover, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development can explain a decent number of Genie’s traits. Piaget’s cognitive development theory focused on the way kids learn through experiments (Hanfstingl et al., 2019). Simple experiments that involve touching and tasting are usual among young children. This theory comprises preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operations stages. According to Piaget’s cognitive development theory, Genie falls in the formal operations stage, which consists of children above eleven years (Hanfstingl et al., 2019). Genie, for example, can easily learn by observing her teacher’s actions and mimicking them.

From a moral perspective, Genie, being subjected to an agonizing past, was unethical. She had the right to learn from the environment as part of her growth. However, Genie’s father kept her confined, claiming to be protecting her from the dangers of the outside world. Before she was rescued from her imprisonment, Genie had already skipped significant development stages. This ordeal had a severe impact on her emotional, moral, and cognitive development.

In addition to that, linguistics, psychiatrists, and psychologist used her as a human guinea pig for their own agendas. Considering that Genie could not communicate, she must have been involved in scientific studies without having expressed her consent, which is against the APA standards of consent (American Psychological Association, 2017). It was unethical for the researchers to take advantage of Genie’s under-developed cognitive abilities and conduct experiments on her.

In conclusion, “Genie: Secrets of a Wild” video shows the importance of various stages of development in a child’s growth. Genie is a federal child who is socially isolated for more than thirteen years. The story of Genie is an indication that while humans are naturally capable of acquiring new abilities by nature, for effective results, they require a caring and loving environment. Genie’s case provided researchers with a chance to gain more knowledge in controlling language acquisition skills. This video clarifies the importance of each language acquisition stage. Children, who skip some of the essential stages, as characterized by Genie, encounter challenges in learning new languages. The documentary also shows how nature and nurture are significant aspects in language acquisition.

American Psychology Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct . Web.

Bandura, A. (2019). Applying Theory for Human Betterment. Sage Journal 14 (1), 12–15. Web.

Hanfstingl, B., Benke, G., & Zhang, Y. (2019). Comparing variation theory with Piaget’s theory of cognitive development: more similarities than differences? Educational Action Research , 27 (4), 511–526. Web.

Jones, E., & Waite-Stupiansky, S. (2017). The Eriksons’ psychosocial developmental theory. Theories of Early Childhood Education , 31-44. Web.

Mohamad, N. N., & Rashid, R. A. (2018). A review of theoretical perspectives on language learning and acquisition. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences , 39 (1), 161–167. Web.

Nilsen, K. (2017). Genie Wiley – TLC Documentary [Video]. YouTube.

Turiel, E. (2018). Moral Development in the Early Years: When and How. Human Development , 61 (4–5), 297–308. Web.

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"“Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child”: The Documentary Analysis." PsychologyWriting , 22 June 2022, psychologywriting.com/genie-secrets-of-a-wild-child-the-documentary-analysis/.

PsychologyWriting . (2022) '“Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child”: The Documentary Analysis'. 22 June.

PsychologyWriting . 2022. "“Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child”: The Documentary Analysis." June 22, 2022. https://psychologywriting.com/genie-secrets-of-a-wild-child-the-documentary-analysis/.

1. PsychologyWriting . "“Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child”: The Documentary Analysis." June 22, 2022. https://psychologywriting.com/genie-secrets-of-a-wild-child-the-documentary-analysis/.

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Dissecting the Legacy — What Really Happened to Genie Wiley?

Published Dec. 7 2023, 9:17 a.m. ET

• Genie Wiley is considered the most abused child in history.
• Discovered at 13 years old, Genie became a subject of language and cognitive development studies. Despite progress, she struggled with communication and faced challenges after the study.
• Post-experiment, Genie's life took a tragic turn in foster care. Experiencing further abuse, she regressed into silence, and her current whereabouts are unknown.

Some scientific cases might ring a bell to the average citizen — Pavlov’s dog (bell-ringing pun intended), Schrodinger’s cat, and the Stanford prison experiment are just a few of those mainstream experiments. But the story of Genie Wiley was also circulated for decades as she provided a unique opportunity for scientists.

Genie, a fake name given to protect her identity, is often considered the most abused child in history. Because of this, when she was discovered, she could barely walk, chew, or use the toilet. Most importantly, she couldn’t communicate at all. Scientists used her to study language and cognitive development, but the story doesn’t have such a happy ending. So, what happened to Genie Wiley?

Genie Wiley was extremely abused in her childhood.

Genie was born in April 1957 in Los Angeles, Calif. to an abusive father and a mother who couldn’t defend her. Genie’s mother, Irene, suffered from cataracts, which caused near-blindness and led her to fearfully depend on her husband, Clark. He was considered an abusive psychopath. His mother died when he was younger in a hit-and-run, after which he displayed psychopathic tendencies.

Of the four children Irene and Clark had, one died due to birth complications, one died as an infant locked in a cold garage, and the other two were Genie and her older brother, John. John was essentially Genie’s only caretaker. He fed her baby food, cereal, and milk at the instruction of his father, whom he also greatly feared. John wasn't allowed to speak to Genie.

During the day, Clark harnessed Genie naked to a toilet seat. If she made any sounds, he would beat her with wood. He only barked and growled at her, so Genie rarely heard anyone speak. At night, Genie was straitjacketed inside of a wire-mesh “crib” — essentially a cage.

Genie’s existence was discovered when Irene took her outside when Clark ran out for groceries. Irene was seeking a cure for her blindness and thought she walked into a blindness disability benefits office, but she instead went to social services. The social workers immediately noticed Genie’s strange behavior — her gait mimicked that of a rabbit, she drooled, was incontinent, and looked to be about 7 years old when she was actually 13.

Genie Wiley was “saved” by the social workers, but her whereabouts now are unknown.

At that point, Irene and Clark were arrested for child abuse, although Irene was released on account of being a victim as well. Clark took his own life at 70 years old just before he was due in court. His suicide note just said, “The world will never understand.” No, we won’t!

Genie was raised by doctors, psychologists, therapists, and more, from 1970 to 1975. She was admitted to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which applied for a grant to study her. Because withholding a proper childhood would be unethical, Genie’s case was a rare opportunity to study the possibilities of learning linguistics after early childhood.

She quickly learned basic skills, like going to the toilet and dressing herself, but she was never able to excel beyond stringing two to three words together at a time. And she never grasped grammatical concepts, despite linguists’ hard work to teach her. She was fostered by researcher and psychologist David Rigler and his wife, Marilyn, until 1975. At this point, Genie was about 18 years old and the grant had been revoked.

Genie was forced to move back in with her mother, who wasn't able to care for her, so she went into the foster care system. This led to more abuse and Genie regressed and didn't speak, although she was still able to communicate nonverbally. Now, however, it’s unknown where Genie is and if she’s still alive.

On her 27th and 29th birthdays, psychiatrist Jay Shurley said that Genie was “largely silent, depressed, and chronically institutionalized,” according to Very Well Mind . In 2000, a private investigator found that Genie was reportedly living in an adult care facility and was “happy.” Now, there’s no record of where she is, but if she’s still alive, she would be 66 years old.

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