Feral Children
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
What do people think about feral children? Pretty strange business, right? I wonder if they ever become fully re-conditioned after they've been found?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8070814.stm
Wednesday, 27 May 2009 18:34 UK
Siberian child 'raised by dogs'
Russian officials have taken a five-year-old Siberian girl into care, saying that she had apparently been "brought up" by cats and dogs.
The girl, who is unable to speak, was discovered living in a squalid flat in the Siberian city of Chita.
Police said she had never been allowed outside and had adopted the behaviour of the animals she lived with.
They said she now "barked like a little dog" and jumped at the door when her carers left the room.
Police are questioning the girl's mother, but her father has not yet been found.
A police statement said the girl was unwashed, dressed in filthy clothes and had the "clear attributes of an animal".
"For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," the statement said.
The police said the girl had managed to master "animal language only", but seemed able to understand Russian.
Earlier this year, President Dmitry Medvedev called for more action on child abuse.
He said 750,000 children in Russia were living in "socially hazardous conditions".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8070814.stm
Wednesday, 27 May 2009 18:34 UK
Siberian child 'raised by dogs'
Russian officials have taken a five-year-old Siberian girl into care, saying that she had apparently been "brought up" by cats and dogs.
The girl, who is unable to speak, was discovered living in a squalid flat in the Siberian city of Chita.
Police said she had never been allowed outside and had adopted the behaviour of the animals she lived with.
They said she now "barked like a little dog" and jumped at the door when her carers left the room.
Police are questioning the girl's mother, but her father has not yet been found.
A police statement said the girl was unwashed, dressed in filthy clothes and had the "clear attributes of an animal".
"For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," the statement said.
The police said the girl had managed to master "animal language only", but seemed able to understand Russian.
Earlier this year, President Dmitry Medvedev called for more action on child abuse.
He said 750,000 children in Russia were living in "socially hazardous conditions".
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
'...It is almost impossible to convert a child who became isolated at a very young age into a relatively normal member of society and such individuals need close care throughout their lives.[citation needed] When they are "discovered", feral children tend to become the subject of lively scientific and media interest. Once the excitement dies down and their limitations in terms of learning culture and social behavior become obvious, frustration can set in and they often spend the rest of their lives being passed from one caregiver to another.[citation needed] It is common for them to die young, though their potential lifespan if they had been left in the wild is difficult to know.[citation needed]
There is little scientific knowledge about feral children.[citation needed] One of the most well-known examples, the "detailed diaries" of Reverend Singh who claimed to have discovered Amala and Kamala (two girls who had been "brought up from birth by wolves") in a forest in India, has been proven a fraud to obtain funds for his orphanage. Bruno Bettelheim states that Amala and Kamala were born mentally and physically disabled..'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
Documented cases
* Hessian wolf-children[5] (1304, 1341 and 1344).
* The Bamberg boy, who grew up among cattle (late 1500s).[citation needed]
* The Irish boy brought up by sheep, reported by Nicolaes Tulp in his book Observationes Medicae (1672). Serge Aroles gives evidence that this boy was a severely disabled boy exhibited for money.
* The three Lithuanian bear-boys (1657, 1669, 1694). Serge Aroles shows from the archives of the Queen of Poland (1664-1688) that these are false. There was only one boy, found in the forests in spring 1663 and then brought to Poland's capital.
* The girl of Oranienburg (1717).[6]
* The two Pyrenean boys (1719).[citation needed]
* Peter the Wild Boy of Hamelin (1724). Mentally handicapped boy, affected with anomalies of the tongue and the fingers. He lived only one year in the wild.
* Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc, the Wild Girl of Songy, also known as the Wild Girl of Champagne (France, 1731). Serge Aroles unearthed hundreds of documents concerning her, and published 30 of them in a 2004 biography. This is the only case of a child having survived 10 years in the forests (from November 1721 to September 1731), and the only feral child who succeeded in a complete intellectual rehabilitation, having learned to read and to write. Unfortunately, all the archives are in French, and almost all the books and articles written in English are wrong: Marie-Angelique was not 10 years old when she was captured, but 19 years old; she did not die "poor at the age of thirty", but she died rich at the age of 63 (15 December 1775); she was not an Eskimo but an Amerindian from Wisconsin (then a French colony); she was brought to France by a lady living in Canada and then escaped into the woods of Provence in 1721.
* The bear-girl of Krupina, Slovakia (1767). Serge Aroles found no traces of her in the Krupina archives.
* The teenager of Kronstadt (1781).[7] According to the Magyar (Hungarian) document published by Serge Aroles, this case is a hoax : the boy, mentally handicapped, had a goitre and was exhibited for money.
* Victor of Aveyron (1797), portrayed in the 1969 movie, The Wild Child (L'Enfant sauvage), by François Truffaut. Once more, Serge Aroles gave evidence that this famous case was not a genuine feral child.
* Kaspar Hauser (early 1800s), portrayed in the 1974 film by Werner Herzog The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle).[8]
* Amala and Kamala, found in 1920 by missionaries near Midnapore, Calcutta region, India
* Shuckskinder, Zell Am See, Austria (c. 1930) A child reported to be seen by locals of the Saalbach-Hinterglem region of the Austrian Alps. No confirmed photographs, nor identifications were ever made, but some locals believed the child was mentally disabled. Physiologist Rebecca Gowing and mountaineer Jamie Gates traced the roots of this myth-child to the Shucksmith family, who had a son registered as partially disabled living on the Austro-Hungarian border, who was lost from records.[citation needed]
* Ramu, Lucknow, India, (1954), taken by a wolf as a baby, raised until the age of seven.[9] Aroles made inquiries on the scene and classifies this as another hoax.
* Syrian Gazelle Boy: A boy aged around 10 was found in the midst of a herd of gazelles in the Syrian desert in the 1950s, and was only caught with the help of an Iraqi army jeep, because he could run at speeds of up to 50 km/h.[10] This is a hoax, as are all the gazelle-boys (see below).
* Saharan Gazelle Boy (1960): found in Rio de Oro in the Spanish Sahara, written about by Basque traveller Jean-Claude Auger, using the pseudonym Armen in his 1971 book L'enfant sauvage du grand desert, translated as Gazelle Boy.[11] When Serge Aroles made inquiries concerning this case in 1997, gathering testimonies in Mauritania, Armen himself admitted that he had written "a book of fiction".
* Genie, Los Angeles, California, discovered 1970.[12] Confined to one room by her father.
* Robert(1982). He lost his parents in the Ugandan Civil War at the age of three, when Milton Obote's looting and murdering soldiers raided their village, around 50 miles (80 km) from Kampala. Robert then lived in the wild, presumably with vervet monkeys, for three years until he was found by soldiers.[13]
* James Goodfellow (1983). He was found in Brazil, having been raised by wolves. He proceeded to be the alpha male within the pack. He ran on all fours and howled in the night. He was seen cleaning himself with his tongue and hands, very common among feral children.[citation needed]
* Baby Hospital (1984). This seven-year-old girl was found by an Italian missionary in Sierra Leone. She had apparently been brought up by apes or monkeys. Baby Hospital was unable to stand upright and crawled instead of walking, and ate directly from her bowl without using her hands. She made the chattering noises of apes or monkeys. Baby Hospital's arms and hands were reported to be well developed, but not her leg muscles. She resisted attempts to civilise her, instead spending much of her time in an activity that is very unusual for feral children: crying.[14]
* Saturday Mthiyane (or Mifune) (1987). A boy of around five who spent a year in the company of monkeys in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.[15]
* Oxana Malaya, Ukraine, (1990s). Raised with dogs until the age of nine.[16]
* Daniel, Andes Goat Boy (1990). Found in Peru, and was said to have been raised by goats for eight years.[17]
* John Ssebunya, Uganda, (1991) raised by monkeys for several years in the jungle.[18][19]
* Belo, the Nigerian Chimp Boy (1996) about two years of age, raised by chimpanzees for a year and a half.[20]
* Ivan Mishukov (1998). Found near Moscow, raised by dogs for two years, and had risen to being "alpha male" of the pack.[21]
* Edik, Ukraine (1999). Edik was found by social workers apparently living with stray dogs in an apartment.[22]
* Alex the Dog Boy (2001). Found in Talcahuano, Chile.[23]
* Traian Căldărar, Romania (2002). Lived for three years with wild dogs in the wilderness.[24]
* Andrei Tolstyk (2004) of Bespalovskoya, near Lake Baikal, Russia, abandoned by parents, to be raised by a guard dog.[25]
* Cambodian jungle girl, Cambodia, (2007), alleged to be Rochom P'ngieng, who lived 19 years in the jungle.[26] Other sources questioned these claims.[27]
* Name Unknown, Uzbekistan, (2007) found after eight years.[28]
* Amy G, Bansko, Bulgaria (2007). She was found in a mountain area where she had been raised by stray dogs. She was unable to communicate and appears to have lived on wild berries and rats.[citation needed]
* Lyokha, Kaluga, Central Russia (December 2007). He had been living with a pack of wolves, had typical wolflike behavior and reactions. He was unable to speak any human language. Taken to a Moscow hospital, he received some medical treatment, a shower and nailtrim and several meals before escaping from the building. He is believed to still be in the wild.[29]
* Danielle Crockett, Florida, United States (2007-2008). Dani had been locked in her room and deprived of human interaction for the first 7 years of her life. She was found and adopted and is currently undergoing efforts to acclimate her to human conditioning including learning English and effective communication.[30][31][32]
* Natasha, Chita, Russia (2009). Five year old girl spent her entire life locked in a room with cats and dogs.
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Hmm, o.k.
It is definately not possible to fully "convert" a feral child.
That is basic psychology, and has nothing to do with the context of how the child was raised.
ALL beings pass through STAGES of development.
Some of those stages, which are critical to linguistic and behavorial development, come very early (like between 2 and 4, for example) and the consequences of "neglect" or "incorrect" conditioning\nurturing during that time period is, and has been provably, irreversable. The absence of human "culture" from a feral childs development is also largely irreversable. This is also connected to development stages. As, while it may be possible for an aged feral child to "learn" some of these social norms, it will be impossible for him\her to fully relate\comprehend\or understand WHY this is important and to truly accept and become part of the human social order in any truly functional and complete sense.
In some ways, the study of feral children is like the study of pre-civilized man.
It gives a good idea, both about how man related to his world in a previous era (sans an intensive "culture"), and particularly it gives good insight in to the necessity of social grouping for the "proper" psychological development of the young mind.
IMHO, the more interesting part of the Feral Children saga is looking at the cases where the children were raised by animals.
There is one case on record (from Russia, perhaps? can't remember now) where a boy was raised by WOLVES.
To me, it is more interesting to study the relationship between these animals and their "adopted" man-cub.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
jk
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Absolutely I would think so... While obviously not on the same level as feral children, children who are neglected or abused in their early years have so much to overcome to try to get to the same social skills levels of "loved" children.
I can see it in my son... he is 16-months old, and everyday my wife and I see things in his actions, words or personality that come from us.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
TAAAAAAYYYYYYYY INNNNNNN DAAAAAAAAAAA WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNN
TAY IN DA WIN!
TAAAAAAAAAAAY IN DA WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
Ahahahahahah!
If I opened it now would you not understand?
It's an interesting story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_Hauser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly_Man
There are some interesting parallels with 'Into the Wild' in this story.
We watched Kaspar Hauser in a German class I took, actually. I wasn't aware that some believe his stab-wound was self-inflicted... I'd like to think he was stabbed by "the stranger" as Herzog suggested.