The “feral children” and their behavior in society

One of the great debates that occupied an important part of our history is the one that refers to the influence of society on childhood. Two of the great speakers of this debate were Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the one hand and Thomas Hobbes in opposition. His approaches dealt with the goodness and evil of humanity, two themes that, as will be seen later, were closely related to the so-called “feral children.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1896) stated that man is good by nature while society is what corrupts him. For his part, Hobbes (1588/2010) coined the famous phrase “man is a wolf to man”, meaning that man is evil by nature and it is precisely the mechanisms of social control that prevent this evil from ending us. destroying

But how do you know who was right? Although it is impossible to separate a child from society to verify this, for moral and ethical reasons, there are children who, due to different circumstances, have grown up isolated from society. These cases have been called “feral children.”

“Wild children” are people who during a period of their childhood have lived outside of society., which includes both children who have been confined and children who have been abandoned in the wild. Although the cases are few and in some the existence of isolation has been questioned or they correspond to myths of little credibility, there are more than twenty cases that, with greater or lesser rigor, have been documented and studied.

Victor of Aveyron

Possibly the most famous case of a feral child is that of Victor of Aveyron. Victor (Itard, 2012) was captured when he was around eleven years old. After a week he escaped and, after spending the winter, he was captured again while he was hiding in an abandoned house. He was admitted to a hospital where his case was studied.

One of the theories that has had the most force about Víctor’s case is that he suffered from an autism spectrum disorder. Given the strange behaviors he displayed, his family abandoned him. Besides, The multiple scars that Victor had were not due to wildlife, but rather they corresponded to physical abuse prior to when he was found in the forest.

According to one of the doctors who handled his case (Itard, 1801), Victor was “an unpleasantly dirty child, affected by spasmodic movements and even convulsions, who swayed incessantly like the animals in the zoo, biting and scratching those he touched. they approached; that he did not show any affection to those who cared for him and that, in short, he was indifferent to everything and did not pay attention to anything.

Although his physical appearance improved as well as his sociability, Attempts to teach him to speak and behave in a civilized manner were unsuccessful.. That is why this example was also taken as a relevant case when debating whether or not there was a critical period for acquiring language.

Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja

Although there are several cases of “wild children” who have lived with animals such as goats, dogs, gazelles, wolves, monkeys, etc., many of these are dismissed due to the lack of data that certifies their authenticity. However, the case of Marcos stands out for being close and verifiable over time.

Marcos was sold by his parents at the age of seven to a landowner who gave him to a goatherd with whom he lived until his death in a cave. Upon the death of the goatherd, Marcos was left alone for eleven years until he was found by the Civil Guard. During those eleven years, his only company was wolves.

The case study was carried out by the anthropologist and writer Gabriel Janer Manila (1976). The cause of his abandonment lay in a socioeconomic context of extreme poverty. The skills that Marcos learned before his abandonment, along with his extraordinary natural intelligence, were what made his survival possible.

Once he was reintroduced into society, he began a readaptation to human customs although Even in adulthood he showed a preference for life in the countryside with animals.. He also developed some animosity toward the noise and smell of cities and maintained the belief that life among humans is worse than life with animals.

Genie

Genie’s parents (Rymer, 1999) suffered from problems: her mother was blind due to retinal detachment and cataracts, and her father suffered from depression that worsened when her mother died in a car accident.

Genie started talking later than most children and doctors diagnosed her as possibly having an intellectual disability. Therefore, her father, fearing that the authorities would take his daughter from him, understood that he had to protect her from the dangers of the outside world.

Genie was imprisoned in her room with the only contact being her father. Genie was forbidden to make noises and spent the nights inside a cage. His diet consisted mostly of baby food. At 13 years old she only understood 20 words, most of which were short and negative.

Genie’s room was sealed, there was only a small hole that allowed him to see 5 centimeters of the world. The other inhabitants of the house were prohibited from visiting her or even speaking to her. In the end, Genie’s mother ran away with her and her brother so the authorities were able to put Genie into treatment (Reynolds and Fletcher-Janzen, 2004).

The first part of the treatment was done by isolating the girl from her mother and the conclusion was that he had undergone a regression. She was worse than when they found her. She was later returned to her mother, who realized that it was very difficult to take care of her, so she went through various foster homes, in some of which she was mistreated again.

Rochom P’ngieng

Rochom (El País, 2007) was a Cambodian girl who was lost at the age of 9 in the jungle, reappearing 10 years later. After disappearing from her parents’ farm, she was found after ten years without anyone knowing anything about her. by a farmer who handed her over to the police.

Upon returning to society, Rochom could not bear to dress, could not remember speaking, and made grunts. She always walked on her haunches and when she was left alone, she would try to escape from her. The multiple scars he had suggested he may have been in captivity. and even suffer abuse (The Guardian, 2007).

Rochom subsequently ran away and was found 10 days later in a septic tank. She was rescued and admitted to a hospital where, according to her parents, she was powerless, sleeping all day. She looked pale and weak.

Sujit Kumar, the chicken boy

In the Fiji Islands, the case of a boy, Sujit Kumar, whose parents died when he was 2 years old, was known. At that time he was left in the care of his grandparents, who put him in the corral to live with the chickens.

He spent 6 years there, the critical stage of his development, without having contact with any other human. He interacted with the chickens, feeding, resting and communicating like them. However, abuse and abandonment also had a lot to say in his difficulties in adapting to society.

Since no one wanted to adopt him, Sujit ended up spending 22 years tied to a bed in a nursing home. It was recently, at 40 years old, when he began to invest in his recovery. Although he is able to make himself understood through gestures and take care of himself in self-care tasks, he has not been able to learn verbal language.

Insertion in society

The return of these “feral children” to society has not been easy. Some factors such as the degree of isolation and the age they were when they were outside of society will be decisive. when it comes to understanding their behaviors in society (Singh and Zingg, 1966).

The “feral children” who have been deprived of all contact with humans are going to have bigger problems. Those who have lived among animals could have a better adaptation to living in groups with their own species.

Vicarious learning is a very important part of development and those who have missed it are going to have more difficulty performing behaviors they have never seen performed. The deprivation of stimuli at a very early age will limit the experiences of these children (McCrone, 1994).

Isolation can, in this sense, even limit body movements and create physical malformations. Other basic skills such as spatial memory may not develop in situations of isolation (since there is no space with which to work mentally).

They are not deprived of intelligence

On the other hand, especially for those “wild children” who have lived with animals, naturalistic intelligence (Gardner, 2010) is usually highly developed. This is the ability to perceive relationships between species, groups of objects and people, recognizing the differences and similarities between them. It specializes in identifying, discerning, observing and classifying members of groups or species of flora and fauna, being the field of observation and efficient use of the natural world.

However, The lack of interactions with other people and emotional ties are basic skills that “feral children” will not develop. Due to this, and the large cultural component of emotions and their regulation, these children have difficulties adapting to those unwritten rules that govern the functioning of any society.

Communication in “wild children”

Language development is another crucial point. Humans, at birth, are capable of making more than 200 different sounds. Society, through reinforcement, will tell them which of these sounds correspond to the language or languages ​​that the children will end up speaking. Those children who are not reinforced from a young age will have more difficulties pronouncing well. The same thing happens with grammar.

The linguist Noam Chomsky (1957/1999) proposed that There is a limit period to learn a language naturally. That period is three years. Once this has passed without the child learning a language, she will not be able to develop the brain structures necessary to learn it. Although words can be learned, complete mastery of the language will require an extraordinary effort.

As Chomsky proposes, at birth we have brain structures that have been formed and are…