Lenneberg, meanwhile, knew of Genie?s case. He was not interested in it though, because he felt the case was too muddy for good science. After all, if Genie could not learn language, her failure could be caused either by her emotional problems, or by the fact that she was already 13-years old, and thus had passed the critical period. Then again, if Genie did acquire language, how much stronger would the rebuttal be! At that time, learning language was what she seemed to be doing. When looking back, the 1972 conference seems the point at which optimism was at its peak.
In retrospect the prospects of Genie?s eventual triumph were already clouding over that summer of 1972. Theories about language acquisition state that when children are in the two-word stadium, they are bound for an explosion. So all the scientists were waiting for that explosion to come. It didn?t come, while months were passing. Her speed of progress remained the same: slow and consistent. Curtiss said later on that ?it was not clear to (her) at all then that she would be so limited?.
If we look at the progression children normally make in forming a negative sentence: it starts with ?No have toy?, then comes ?I not have toy? and then the child forms the sentence ?I don(o)t have a toy?. Genie stayed stuck in that first three-word stage for years. Furthermore, she still could not ask a normal question. Wh-movement was a facility not present in Genie?s brain, which made it impossible for her to form a Wh-question. She could understand the questions though, but when she was pushed to form herself, she came with questions like ?I where is graham cracker on top shelf??. She also had a problem with pronouns: she did not distinguish between ?me? and ?you?. She never figured out who she was and who someone else, Rymer says in his book. She could communicate extremely well though: whether it was with gestures, pictures, mime or homomyms. She would come when she was called for, however she could not call for anyone herself. Many scientists had to face her failure: Genie had levelled out in language learning almost immediately after she was discovered. Some scientists claimed that her failure was because she was retarded. Curtiss does not believe this. She stated that Genie scored a perfect adult score on tests measuring her spatial capabilities. Furthermore, her mental age advanced a year for every year she had been out of isolation. This does not happen with retarded children. And she did progress: in March 1974 she combined two skills- fantasizing verbally and manipulating- to tell an outright lie. Furthermore, she started to use language to explain an event that had happened in the past. She told the Rigler family in the late summer of 1974 about how her father had hit her with a stick. This answered the question of whether she would be able to explain events that had happened before language was part of her world.
Later that year, Genie started to pay visits to her mother, whose eyesight had been completely restored. There now was tension between Irene and Marilyn Rigler, as well as between Jean Butler and the group of scientists. Butler lobbied aggressively against Rigler, Hansen and Curtiss with anyone from the scientific community who would listen. She claimed that Genie was not as healthy and happy as had been claimed to be, and that she was most vibrant ever when she was staying with her. Then, when the research grant was not going to be continued with, she was transferred from foster-family to foster-family. Some of these families were abusive, and when one foster-mother tried to extract fecal material with an ice-cream stick, and she felt the world would invade the sovereignity of her body, she felt she could deprive the world of something herself: she did not speak for five months. Curtiss remained a frequent visitor, and she was told by Genie that Genie wanted to live at the Rigler?s house again. In 1977 Curtiss and Fromkin received a grant from the National Science Foundation to continue their linguistic research. They were now the only remaining scientists to be funded to work with Genie.
Curtiss started to sort out all her research, notes and videos from Genie?s time at the Riglers. She sorted out exactly what Genie had learned and what she hadn?t. She found out that Genie had been developing a vocabulary, and she was able to put it in strings to express a complex idea. Although she tried, she never mastered grammar though. She could not use word endings, for instance. ?She had a clear semantic ability but could not learn syntax?, as Curtiss puts it. Furthermore, Genie?s linguistic system developed in bits and pieces, not all at once. This meant that grammar could be seen apart from all the other non-grammatical aspects of language, such as vocabulary etc. It could also be seen apart from other mental faculties. With her, unlike with normal children, language came forth separate from other cognition. With Genie it was seen that language and other cognitive tasks could develop independent from each other.
Genie?s inabilities bore out Lenneberg?s theory, at least partly. She showed that simply being exposed to language did not mean one could still language after one had passed puberty. With her the learned skills, like vocabulary, were completely separated from what are supposed to be the innate skills, like syntax. Her semantic abilities had been burdened by her development. These conclusions raised questions again. How could a child who had been shut away from language be deprived of the innate parts of language? Why was she unable to regain syntax Chomsky said she had been born with?
The scientists were more or less able to find the answer in neurology. The right hemosphere of the brain is used for creative things- listening to music, but also getting a joke and having a sense of what is and what is not appropriate to say in a conversation. The left hemosphere includes mathematics, logic and language. Both sides know the meanings of words. By puberty, the brain is more or less stable, in that all the critical periods have run their course: language, senses. ?Brain damage can interfere with acquisition of language early on, but if it happens during the critical period, other parts of the brain can fill in?, Helen Neville, a neuroscientist at the Salk institute in La Jolla, california explains. She also explains that, for instance with deaf people language changes from the right hemosphere (which includes facial perception and should include sign language) to the left hemosphere, including language and logic. Genie?s brain also seemed to be biased: she did well on tasks involving the right hemosphere, she failed the tasks for which she needed to use her left-hand brain. Curtiss performed a test on her to discover what was really going on: she played different things simultaneously into each of Genie?s ears (the left ear corresponds to the right hemosphere, the right ear corresponds to the left hemosphere) and measured each hemosphere?s response. Each ear alone performed perfectly; both ears with the same sounds were OK, but when the two ears competed, the left ear (and right hemosphere) performed better. This is not very strange, but the degree of asymmetry found was striking. Genie?s brain was found to be processing language just as it did with environmental sounds: on the right hand of the brain. It is normal for the brain to have a preference for one hemosphere. Genie did not just have a pronounced preference, she had an absolute preference. Curtiss explained that ?Genie?s case suggests the possibility that normal cerebral organization may depend on language development occurring at the appropriate time. (?) Lenneberg claimed that the brain organized language learning. Now it seems certain that stimulation is needed to organize the brain.? She also said that language is the only stimulation that would do to organize the brain, and that ?Language is a logic system so organically tuned to the mechanism of the human brain that it actually triggers the brain?s growth?.
Early 1978, Curtiss says that Genie is now becoming confused and traumatized by the frequent moves. She has been moved from one foster-family to the hospital, to another foster-family and back to the hospital. Then, on march 20th, Genie is being transferred back to her biological mother. Rigler later claims Genie?s estate she had received after the death of her father, because he says he has given her lots of therapy and never has been paid for this. Soon afterward, Irene receives the book Curtiss has written about Genie, her family and her background. Irene feels her privacy is not being guarded, so she sues Curtiss with the help of Jean Butler. She accuses them if multiple infractions of patient- therapist and patient-physician confidentiality. Too much information about Genie?s and Irene?s personal life and background had been revealed by this book, she felt. One of her lawyers claims that Butler ?started the whole notion that Curtiss? book was a violation of Irene?s privacy?, probably to take revenge on the scientists. The longer the case dragged on, the stronger the suspicion grew on the part of Irene?s lawyers that they were contesting on marshy grounds. Her lawyers then withdrew from the case, and Irene represented herself in front of the lawyers. A settlement was made: Susan Curtiss was instructed to direct a programme for Genie of linguistic, neurolinguistic and neuropsychological evaluation and language instruction. Any income the scientists made was to be donated to Genie?s estate.
Genie now lives in a home for retarded adults, and visits her mother on one weekend in each month. With the exception of Jay Shurley, none of the scientists has seen her. This is where the story ends; it is undoubtedly a sad story, though we have learned something from it. When the brain has not received enough stimulation in the form of language during the critical period, it can still learn words, but it can not conquer syntax anymore. The brain is then not capable of growing in a way that is needed for it to learn grammar anymore.
Russ Rymer: Genie, A Scientific Tragedy. Penguin Books?.
Written account of the video ?Secret of a Wild Child?.