The film “The Secret of the Wild Child” depicts the story of a girl, Genie, who was discovered in nineteen seventy after she had spent twelve years being locked in a room by herself. She lived in total social isolation, and did not have any cognitive and social skills that her age mates did. Her case was so interesting for psychologists, linguists, and other scientists. First of all, girl was placed in the hospital, later she lived in doctors’ apartments, guardian’s apartments, and with her mother.
When foundation was stopped, Genie was placed in specialized establishment for people with mental diseases. Socialization is a process and, simultaneously, a result of humans’ social development. That is why,socialization is directly connected with a process of interaction with outer world by an individual. Additionally, socialization is connected with social control, as it also means absorbing of knowledge , norms, and values set by particular society. There are defined three general levels of socialization, they are such as adaptation, individualization, and, finally, integration.
Genie did not pass any of these stages being isolated from outer world and from her family. It is supposed if a person do not pass the process of adaptation (from four years old till six years old), then his or her development never be completed. This stage of adaptation is a period of development when a person realizes that she or he is actually a human, social creature. More than, most of scientists convince that a person with physical disabilities grown in a society is more likely to be more socialized than a person that is intact but deprived from society.
That is why, the only fact of Genie’s isolation is a signal of poor socialization and poor personal development, that is closely interconnected with the first one (Blumer). Genie, as most of feral children, managed to achieve elementary skills in linguistic and communication. Nevertheless, during the process of teaching Genie, there was discovered her strange behavior. That was turns of anger, absence of ability to talk. It was obvious for doctors and teachers, that it was connected with violence had been committed to her by her father in her “childhood”.
Her father, Clark Gray Wiley, was cruel and tyranny personality, who could not stand any noises and even sounds, exactly that is why he locked his daughter in the room. Additionally, he prohibited her to produce any sounds, otherwise Genie was strictly punished. That is why, during investigation and education Genie demonstrated good performance in achieving linguistic skills. She even managed to remember and understand words, the senses of which were abstract phenomenas, that is actually very unusual for a personality with cognitive abilities of very young children.
Nevertheless, someday she refused to communicate verbally, preferring finger-speech. The syndrome and its reason is more than obvious. Taking into account that such a personal skill as ability for communication is a principal feature of socialization, Genie was doomed for poor socialization due to neglect and abuse committed in her “childhood”. Among developmental milestones Genie achieved during her intensive therapies she received are such as elementary learning of communicative skills.
She learned to interact with people, began trusting them, as specialist tended to be not just her therapists, but also family. Considering verbal communication, she learned some vocabulary, nevertheless, she did not manage to study grammar, that is more principle for verbal communication. As it has been already mentioned, Genie preferred to communicate using pantomimic speech, her success in this sphere were not revealed in the film. It is unlikely, that Genie managed to achieve more complicated communicative systems, for instance, such as cultural, or symbolical.
It is still unclear, what was the reason of failure in studying of verbal communicative system? If it was Genies’ experience of being prohibited to produce sounds, maybe it would be more reasonable to teach her sign language, in other words, taciturn communicative system. There might be more corresponding achievements of her socialization, as communication is nearly a core of this process. Considering a better system for development of Genie, I suppose that it should be interactive structural environments.
Because Genie needed a hospital for direct treatment, and at the same time time, this institution would play a role of outer formal social environment, and she also needed a home, as she had to learn intimate interpersonal communicative skills too. Home would be a system of informal personal institution, that is important for personal socialization too. More than, according to structural-functionalist theory, all systems and their process in the society are inter-connected for the development of the society (Hooper). The same in the case of Genie, she needed both systems for the best socialization.
There were really social conflicts in the case of Genie. First of all, the question if Genie is an object for treatment or an object for a research appeared at the first stages. This question was not resolved till the end. Considering the character of the conflict, it was an ethical question, that involved a huge amount of people from completely different social groups, it was long-term conflict and involved at the same time rational sense and emotional factors. That is why, that conflict could not be constructive and it was doomed to be destroying (Knight). Unfortunately, the case of Genie was closed.