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1 GENIE |
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& PSICOLOGIA
( Psycholinguistic Study of
;

A
Modern-Day‘‘ Wild Child
om ° °

et 99

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PERSPECTIVES IN
NEUROLINGUISTICS
ie
anp
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 4;
;
Harry A, Whitaker, Series Editor
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
Wy SUSAN CURTISS
THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER } University of California
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
% Los Angeles, California
iy
%

HAIGANOOSH WHITAKER and Harry A. WHITAKER (Eds.).

Studies in Neurolinguistics, Volumes 1 and 2; Volume 3. In
é.
preparation iq
NorMawn J. Lass (Ed.). Contemporary Issues in
Experimental Phonetics :
JASON W. Brown. Mind, Brain, and Consciousness: The
Neuropsychology if
of Cognition
S. J. SEGALOwiITz and F. A. GRuBER of
(Eds.). Language Development and tq
Neurological Theory J

SUSAN Curtiss. Genie: A

Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day “Wild xy
Child” .

.'
In preparation
:
I. M. SCHLESINGER and Lita Namie
(Eds.). Sign Language of the Deaf: i. ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London 1977
*
Psychological, Linguistic, and Sociological Perspectives
JOHN MACNAMARA (Ed.). a
Language Learning and Thought A Subsidiary
; .

of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers

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 ;
|

CopyriGut © 1977, ACADEMIC Press, INC.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
sy
% To Genie
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
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TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY
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PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER,
"

z
%
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. £
111 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
o
.

United Kingdom Edition published by

ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
S
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1 ig
oe

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

i
Curtiss,
Genie
Susan
of
$
: a psycholinguistic study a modern-day
“wild child.”
¥
(Perspectives in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics ‘s
series) :
Originally presented as the author’s thesis, University +
of California, Los Angeles, 1976,
iy
Bibliography: Pp. Ae
1. Children—Language~Case studies. 2. Psycho- o .

linguistics~Case studies, 3. Speech disorders in ae

children—Case studies, 4, Languages—Physiological
aspects—Case studies. I, ,
Title. .

PIt8.C8 1976 401 9 76-55968 |

ISBN 0-12-196350—0

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

,

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 '
.

a
ai

;
#
Ph
Family Background and
ship
Early Childhood
°

S To understand this case history, one must understand Genie’s family

a background. Genie’s mother said that when she married, her life ended. She had
ES a stormy marriage, during which she was frequently beaten by her husband. He

# repeatedly threatened to kill her, and she lived in fear, reinforced by the recurrent
2 beatings over the years.
a Despite the fact that her husband disliked children and was adamant about
Mi not having any, after 5 years of marriage, Genie’s mother became pregnant.

e Very late into the pregnancy, the father-to-be viciously beat and tried to kill his
Oe wife by strangling her. Nonetheless, their first daughter was born, evidently
if healthy and thriving. As babies often do, this infant cried considerably. Exas-
Pa perated and irritated by her crying, the father had his new daughter put into the
Be garage so that he would not have to listen to her. At the age of 24 months this
x4 child died of pneumonia and overexposure.
oS The following year, a second child was born. A boy, this infant had an RH
wf blood type incompatibility. He died when he was 2 days old, allegedly from
if choking on his own mucous.

2a Three years later, another son was born. Delivered by Caesarian section
4 (as were the first two infants) with an RH blood incompatibility as well, he was
{ nonetheless apparently healthy baby. Because the father had very rigid ideas
an

3 about obedience and discipline, the mother was under great pressure to keep
f her new son from “acting up” or crying. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, this
: young boy began to manifest early developmental problems. He was reportedly
i late to walk, had eating problems, was late to talk, and was still not toilet-trained
| at the age of three. At that point his paternal grandmother took the boy into her

| :
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 4
:
Genie: A
.
Psycholinguistic Study 4
E
;
:
Family Background
.
and Early Childhood
.
5

Although
=

own home. Under her care, he thrived, rapidly became toilet-trained, and,finally, = grandmother was hit by a truck and killed while crossing the street.
father considered her death
in much better developmental condition, was returned to his parents. #t. his mother had been in her late seventies, Genie’s
* had close relationship with her
Three years later Genie was born. A
full-term baby, she, too, was delivered untimely, and although he had not a very
embittered when the truck driver
by Caesarian section, and suffered from an RH blood incompatibility for ay when she was alive, he become outraged and
charges. His was to move his
which she received an exchange transfusion 1 day after birth. Her birth weight 2 : who had hit her was acquitted of all response
mother’s home and to isolate them from the outside
(7 pounds, 14 ounces) was in the 50th percentile on the lowa Growth Chart (ie., ae family into his dead

completely normal). Genie was first taken to a pediatrician at the age of 3 4i world.
months. He noticed a congenital dislocation of the hip for which he prescribed a a Living in fear of the father, this move was the beginning of imprisonment
and seclusion for the whole family; but for Genie it was the beginning
of her
Frejka pillow splint to hold both legs in abduction. At this visit, Genie’s weight a
increasingly confined to the
was 12 pounds, 24 ounces, her height was 23 inches—again, normal
for her age ‘- extreme abuse, neglect, and isolation. Genie was

first, Genie
reported by her mother that, at was
and sex. At 4 months she was noted to have “good head control.” At4$ months gE smaller of two bedrooms. It is
allowed outside, sit on the back steps or play in a playpen
Genie began wearing the Frejka splint. At the age of 5 months, when she was 3 occasionally to go to
the
brought in for a routine follow-up examination, she was noted to be alert and a in the backyard. When discussing these backyard “excursions,” however,
often times of neglect and confinement.
engaged in hand-to-mouth movements. On a return examination at 6 months, mother revealed that even these were

She reports that Genie was a “bad girl,” that left in her playpen to play,
Genie
she weighed 14 pounds, 7} ounces, and was 253 inches tall. At that visit, the oy
long Genie, a tiny
a
~

fingernails. One wonders how

doctor asked that she be returned again in a month. Genie was not brought would take it apart with her
how long she must have been
back for 5 months, however, until she was 11 months old. At that time she
-

me toddler, must have been left in that playpen,

weighed only 17 pounds—below the 16th percentile for her age and sex; thus, 23 neglected or forgotten, to resort to this action.
small bedroom, harnessed to an
within the first year of life, her weight had fallen drastically. Nonetheless, at that
visit, Genie could sit alone, was described as alert, and had normal primary
a
as
In the house Genie was confined to a

infant’s potty seat. Genie’s father sewed the harness, himself; unclad except
for
3
; Frejka splint was removed. Her
dentition for her age. Soon after this visit, the 3 the harness, Genie was left to sit on that chair. Unable to move anything except
after
physician recommended physiotherapy following removal of the splint, but oe her fingers and hands, feet and toes, Genie was left to sit, tied-up, hour
after
; Genie’s father refused to permit it. a hour, often into the night, day after day, month after month, year year.

: We do not know many other details of Genie’s life during her first year and Ee Ce
At night, when Genie was not forgotten, she was removed from her harness only
a half. Her mother reports that Genie was a noncuddly baby, thatshedidn’tcoo #4 to be placedinto another restraining sleeping bag which her father
garment—a
or babble very much, that she resisted any solid food, even Junior foods. Genie 2 had fashioned to hold Genie’s arms stationary (allegedly to prevent her from
reportedly, then, was manifesting similar developmental problems and lags to i taking it off). In effect, it was a straight jacket. Therein constrained, Genie was
those her brother had shown—reluctance to chew, resistance to most foods, =*% put into an infant’s crib with wire mesh sides and a wire mesh cover overhead.
lateness in walking. We do not know the cause of these early problems, but we 3 Caged by night, harnessed by day, Genie was left to somehow endure the hours
do know that Genie’s father disliked his daughter and did not allow his wife to ee and years of her life.
devote too much time or attention to her. Thus, her life may not have provided There was little for her to listen to; there was no TV or radio in the house.
the nurturing that aids development. ae Genie’s bedroom was in the back of the house next to a bedroom and bath- a
At 14 months, Genie developed an acute illness (pneumonitis) and was WE room. The adjacent bedroom was left unoccupied the entire time the family
taken to a different pediatrician. Feverish, she was listless and unresponsive; oy lived in the house. It (the father’s) “mother’s” room. Not wishing to “defile”
was

this physician stated that she showed signs of possible retardation but because Ye __
it, Genie’s father permitted no one to enter it, not even to dust. The father had
an intolerance for noise, so what little conversation there was between family
of the fever, it was difficult to assess her development. The doctor's statement— Ne
that Genie showed signs of possible retardation—proved to have disastrous er members in the rest of the house was kept at a low volume. Except for moments
of anger, when her father swore, Genie did not hear any language outside her
consequences for Genie. Genie’s father, who was already intensely jealous
of the .

attention the mother paid to Genie, used this statement as justification for the mi door, and thus received practically no auditory stimulation of any kind, aside
subsequent isolation and abuse Genie suffered. 4 from bathroom noises. There were two windows in her room, and one of them
was kept open several inches. She may, therefore, have occasionally
heard an
At the age of 20 months, Genie’s life worsened tragically. Her paternal =

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 6 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study Z Family Background and Early Childhood 7

. airplane overhead or some other traffic or environmental noises; but set in the Ss her mouth. Should Genie choke and spit out some of her food, she would
back of the house, Genie would not have heard much noise from the street.
“a have her face rubbed in it. Her mother reports that Genie was fed three times
Hungry and forgotten, Genie would sometimes attempt to attract attention
¥ a day, but from the mother’s recalling how through the years Genie would
by making noise. Angered, her father would often beat her for doing so. In fact, ae attempt to attract attention (and risk being beaten for it), it is probable that
there was a large piece of wood left in the corner of Genie’s room which her
a she was often left to go hungry.
father used solely
to beat her whenever she made any sound. Genie learned to & This was Genie’s life—isolated, often
forgotten, frequently abused (many
keep silent and to suppress all vocalization;
but sometimes, desperate for
& ;
details of horrible abuse are here), physically restrained, starved for
omitted
attention or food, Genie would use her body or some object to make noise. Her & sensory stimulation. Thus minimally exposed to humanity, and most of that
father would not tolerate this either, and he often beat her with his wooden = the most hideous of human behavior, Genie grew into a pitiful creature.
stick on these occasions During these times, and on all other occasions
as well. a Genie’s father was convinced that Genie would die. He was positive that
that her father dealt with Genie, he never spoke to her. Instead, he acted like a
= she would not live past the age of twelve. He was so convinced of this that he
wild dog. He made barking sounds, he growled at her, he let his nails grow long & promised his wifethat if the child did live beyond twelve, the mother could seek
and scratched her, he bared his teeth at her; and if he wished to merely threaten 3 help for Genie. But age twelve came and went; Genie survived, but the father
her with his presence, he stood outside the door and made his dog-like noises— Re : reneged on his promise. The mother, too blind to even dial the phone and
to warn her that he was there and that if she persisted in whatever she was os forbidden under threat of death to contact her own parents (who lived in the
doing, he would come in and beat her. That terrible noise, the sound of her 2 area), felt helpless to do anything.
father standing outside her door growling or barking or both, was almost the = Finally, when Genie was 134-years-old, Genie’s mother, after a violent
only sound Genie heard during those years she was imprisoned in her room. s argument with her husband in which she threatened to leave unless he called
At first, Genie’s mother did manage to spend a few moments with Genie * her parents, succeeded in getting her husband to telephone her mother. Later
each day. But as she was fast becoming blind, and finding it harder and harder | that day Genie’s mother took Genie and left her home and her husband.
to even minimally care for Genie, Genie’s brother increasingly became the
z They escaped to the grandmother’s home, where she and Genie stayed for
principal caretaker. The father taught the brother to imitate his own dog-like ee three more weeks. During the third week, Genie’s mother was advised to apply
behavior, so that Genie’s brother did not speak to her either. In the fashion of
his father, her brother only barked and growled at her.
ah for aid to the blind. Taking Genie with her, she inadvertently went to the family
Fe aids building, where an eligibility worker, upon seeing Genie, sensed that
Just as there was little to listen to, there was not much for Genie to touch cs something was terribly wrong. The worker alerted her supervisor immediately,
or look at. The only pieces of furniture in her room were the crib and the potty Ps and the two of them questioned the mother. What they saw and heard caused
seat. There was no carpet on the floor, no pictures on the walls. There were two
Bs them to call the police. The police took Genie into custody; charges were
windows, but they were covered up except for a few inches at the top out of & brought against the parents. On the day of the trial the father killed himself.
which Genie could see the sky from one and the side ofa neighboring house from
a
.

He left a suicide note stating, “The world will never understand.”

the other. There was one dim, bare ceiling light bulb, a wall of closets, and ak Genie was admitted into the hospital for extreme malnutrition. She had
another wall with the bedroom door. The room was a dirty salmon color. ee been discovered, at last.
Occasionally, two plastic raincoats, one yellow, hung outside the
clear and one a
closet in the room, and once in a while Genie was allowed to “play” with them. 3
In addition, Genie was sometimes given “partly edited” copies of the TV log, ay --

with pictures that her father considered too suggestive removed (like women a3
advertising swimming pools, etc.). She was also given an occasional empty a
cottage cheese container, empty thread spools, and the like. These were Genie’s mo
toys; and together with the floor, her harness, and her body, they were her i
primary sources of visual and tactile stimulation.
Genie’s diet was equally limited. She was given baby foods, cereals, an oc- 4
casional soft-boiled egg. Under pressure from the father to keep contact with “
Genie to a minimum, she was fed hurriedly, usually by having food stuffed into ¥

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 “E

+ November 1970—January 1971

| 3

# Genie was pitiful. Hardly ever having worn clothing, she did not react to

B temperature, heat or cold.’ Never having eaten solid food, Genie did not know
how to chew, and had great difficulty in swallowing. Having been strapped
|
Be down and left sitting on a potty chair, she could not stand erect, could not
em] straighten her arms or legs, could not run, hop, jump, or climb; in fact, she could
e only walk with difficulty, shuffling her feet, swaying from side to side. Hardly
2
,

ever having seen more than a space of 10 feet in front of her (the distance from

we her potty chair to the door), she had become nearsighted exactly to that distance.
ae Having been beaten for making noise, she had learned to suppress almost all
ae vocalization save a whimper. Suffering from malnutrition, she weighed only
‘s 59 pounds and stood only 54 inches tall. She was incontinent of feces and urine.
af: Her hair was sparse and stringy. She salivated copiously, spitting onto anything
oe at hand. Genie was unsocialized, primitive, hardly human.

3 Surprisingly, however, Genie was alert and curious. She maintained good
a eye contact and avidly explored her new surroundings. She was intensely eager
“es for human contact and attention. In the face of her hunger for contact with her
and new world, her almost total silence had an eerie quality. Except for a high-

i pitched whimpering and a few words she is reported to have imitated when she
a
,

was first admitted to the hospital, she was a silent child who did not vocalize

iM in any way, who did not even sob when she cried. Her silence was complete
i
ad
even in the face of frenzied emotion. Sometimes, frightened and frustrated by

ad ’
Singh and Zingg (1942) reported that the “wolf girls” did not react to changes in temperature
“y : and seemed oblivious to heat or cold. The wild boy of Aveyron also displayed this imperviousness
3 to temperature.
: 9

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 10 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study 5 ; November 1970—January 1971 11

'

both her former life and her new surroundings, Genie would
erupt and have a - be The careful observations made by Dr. K (Genie’s primary therapist while
raging tantrum, flailing about, scratching, spitting, blowing her nose, and oe * she was at the hospital) in his notes were very revealing. Although his notes
frantically rubbing her face and hair with her own mucous, all the time trying Sb. were based on daily visits with Genie, there was reference to language only
to gouge or otherwise inflict pain on herself—all in silence. Unable to vocalize,
& . once in November and six times in December of 1970. These notes reflect,
Genie would use objects and parts of her body to make noise and help
express S first of all, then, the scarcity of linguistic responses that Genie exhibited in
her frenzy: a chair scratching against the floor, her fingers scratching against a *
a those months. More importantly, his notes reveal that Genie understood little
balloon, furniture falling, objects thrown or slammed against other objects, her ae more than a few single words and negative command intonation. His notes
feet shuffling. These were Genie’s noises during her sobless silent tantrum. At “ demonstrate that Genie zeroed in on single words and ignored the sentences

long last, physically exhausted, her rage would subside, and Genie would “2§ -

in which they occurred. If someone used a word she understood, she res-

silently return to her undemonstrative self. e :

ponded to it in a uniform fashion, regardless of its grammatical or semantic
There was no real language during her placid times either. Except for a few S context.
%
‘

words, Genie never spoke. She wasabizarre, unsocialized, silent human being. Dr. K’s notes also reveal that at times Genie imitated words that were
But what lay beneath the surface? For us, the primary question was what, if = .
spoken to her, thereby showing that she attended to speech directed to her and
any, language abilities lay unrevealed in her eerie silence. Could she understand was motivated to interact and behave linguistically.
language? Did she know how to speak but not do so because she had con- : The videotapes further supported our conclusions. (See Part II, Chapter 8,
ditioned herself not to speak aloud? If so, the task ahead of her was surely qs Section 8.1 for a detailed look at these data.) From over30 hours of tape, the
a difficult one, but one that therapy and
recovery might achieve. If she had a zB evidence is very strong that Genie comprehended several individual words
passive knowledge of language, it would mean that she would have only to
learn to use in performance what she already knew. Was Genie, instead, a aes (namely, “rattle,” “bunny,” “red,” “blue,” “green,” and “brown”) and a few
names (including “mother”), and, in addition, was able to extract the information

pubescent adolescent over 134-years-old who did not understand or speak? If “ NEG and WARNING from negative commands, and possibly the information
that was the case, then she was faced with the task of learning her first language a QUESTION from yes/no question intonation. Moreover, it may be that some
as an adolescent, long past the time when children ordinarily learn
language, a words were used spontaneously, but it is unclear because of Genie’s poor
possibly past the time when the brain can do so. (See Part III, 11.1 for further ‘s
:
articulation. There is no evidence, however, that Genie had any additional
discussion of this question.) knowledge of English. On the contrary, there is convincing evidence that Genie
It several months after her admission into thehospital before careful
was
aS could not process a sentence of English on the basis of its linguistic content“
linguistic observation, documentation, and investigation were begun. Thus, in g alone, but rather that she depended critically on gestures and other nonlinguistic
order to determine that state of Genie’s linguistic knowledge at the point when os cues to successfully make any sense of speech directed to her. She readily re-
she was first discovered, we had to find out all we could from those who had had oe sponded to gestures alone, yet failed to respond to speech without accompanying
contact with her and from any and all records that were made regarding Genie
x gestures or nonlinguistic cues. What is more, her failure to respond often
during that first period at the hospital. ve occurred at times when she was visibly tuned in to the speech around her and
In tracing back we discovered that Genie understood a few words but had ‘h sufficiently
motivated attempt vocalizations of her own—both imitative
to
not acquired language. Our evidence came from
a variety of sources. Reports * and spontaneous. The observations from Dr. K parallel the 30 hours of video-
from Genie’s mother conflicted. One version was that Genie had begun to speak tape.
-
words, but stopped shortly thereafter. In another version, she reported that Genie was learning her first language when she was 13 years,
faced with
Genie never spoke at all. We didn’t know which was true. a 7 months of age. Though it might be true, as her mother suggested, that Genie
The hospital staff had the general impression that Genie could understand 4 had begun to acquire some vocabulary and speak some words as a baby, words
a fair amount based on the fact that she maintained good which may even have remained with her through her years of isolation, it
eye contact and seemed was
to pay special attention to faces when people spoke to her. Yet all the staff a apparent that her linguistic environment had not providedsufficient stimulation
interviewed admitted on questioning that they tended to point and demonstrate ; or
exposure to primary linguistic data for true language to emerge.
when relating to Genie, and thus a fair amount of gesturing most probably : also necessary to determine whether her environment had
It was
permitted
accompanied their speech to her. They also stated that often Genie did not sufficient cognitive development for language acquisition. The evidence indi-
respond to very common, simple commands or questions. : Cated that it had.

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 ™

|
send ey ar

Psycholinguistic Study Bd ao
12
Genie: A
|
Se
In November 1970 Genie was given the Vineland Social Maturity Scale ES A. -
||

and the Preschool Attainment Record, the

scores of which mental age were ie |
1971 Genie was “se a
(MA) 1.05 years and MA 13 months, respectively.
given the Leiter International Performance Scale,
In January
achieving an MA of 4.9. a = 3
Her performance on these tests placed her somewhere
around the 2-year-old ee a |
level with a wide scatter in subtest scores (see
Part III). Although we were to ae
conclude that these first test performances were not at all reliable measures of ae Re
abilities (underrepresenting her abilities), her performance was, “egies” |
her cognitive
notwithstanding, sufficient to judge her to be at least as advanced
as normal BEE.
children are when they begin to acquire language (Sinclair-de Zwart, 1971). aE
for the language = ee Janu ary 1971—June 1971
There were also linguistic indicators of her preparedness
learning task ahead, Her comprehension of single words implied
an ability to eRe:
scan and segment the speech stream for familiar sounds and groups of sounds Bs. = -

and showed, in addition, an ability to parse the stream

of incoming speech into Fe ee
units, words. Moreover, her receptive abilities were in some sense ae
linguistic e.g.,
of all that Genie Ee:
paralleled by what was probably the most persuasive indicator
was ready for language—her imitation
and spontaneous production of words— a \ te .

the same phenomenon that marks the onset of language

in normal children. aa : e :
to have a small receptive vocabulary
Thus it appeared that Genie ready, cognitively and linguistically. But Be
was Pa As of January 1971, Genie appeared
even smaller productive vocabulary. Her receptive vocabulary included
was it too late? Was this girl, already 13 years and 7 months old,
too old to learn Be 4° and an

language? - &, the following:

Verbs Negatives Common nouns Color adjectives

a o Proper nouns

3 Genie walk no door red

blue
A Mother go don’t jewelry box

ae. Other names rattle green

bunny brown
ce

few other words she understood for which we have

no
oe There may have been a
know-
record. Her receptive knowledge of language may have included some
aE intonation.
ae ledge of intonation cues, most probably negative imperative
and nomore.
aaa. Her spontaneous productive vocabulary included stopit
neither identifi-
ae Again, there may have been a few other utterances which were
= able nor documented.
Genie also manifested interest in watching a speaker’s articulating
-£z an
|

i
:
mouth and
These
imitating words,
appeared to
a hopeful sign for the emergence of
be the extent of Genie’s linguistic abilities as of January
speech.

. 3 1971. We could not tell to what extent these meager indications of language
5.3
4 ©
already represented growth and development since Genie’s emergence.

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14 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study € : January 1971—June 1971
15

The prognosis for recovery or significant growth in any and every area of _ 4 like a 13-year-old. Dr. Elkind, in May of 1971, described Genie as being
12- or

her development was poor. But we didn’t know Genie, a child who would 38 in the stage of concrete operations, that is, in the 6- to 7-year-old range. This
refuse to stand still, who refused to “listen” to the pessimistic prognoses re- “PF striking disparate scatter in ability noted as early as February of 1971, became
garding her chances for growth and development. Despite our pessimism, Genie 32 more and more apparent as time went on, and will be discussed further in
began to change and grow. -
an Part III.
In December she was moved to the hospital Rehabilitation Center because PF growing knowledge and cognitive ability were evident in less formal
Genie’s
it offered greater opportunities for socialization, a richer activity program, and situations well as on tests. Her interest and performance in classroom
as

better access to the outdoors than did the hospital ward. While there, Genie %§ activities involving numbers, letters, colors, puzzles, and fine motor skills
began to change physically, to gain weight and to grow taller. Breast develop- 4B revealed in her a continuous curiosity about her new world and the capacity to
ment signaled the onset of sexual maturation. Her walk became steadier, her * | learn and retain skills and concepts she was exposed to. An anecdotal example

i captured on videotape demonstratesalittle of the focus and knowledge she was

carriage more erect. After several months, she was able to take long walks %
through the area surrounding the Rehabilitation Center, usually tiring out her .
beginning to reveal: In May, in the classroom with Genie and others, the teacher
adult companions long before she was ready to return. ee. asked a child who had two balloons how many he had. He said, Three. Genie
Slowly, but noticeably, during the months from January through June of 4 i.

looked startled and gave him another balloon.

1971, Genie changed socially as well. She began to differentiate the adults :@§ This anecdote reveals more than Genie’s new and understanding
awareness

around her and to devlop closer dependent relationships with some of the
¥ of her environment. It reveals her new linguistic knowledge as well. And so it
hospital staff. She began to differentiate affect and respond more appropriately. % was that as other aspects of Genie’s physical and psychological being began to
Dr. K’s description (Kent, 1972), found in Appendix III, elucidates the quality gf - develop, language began to emerge. From the barest rudiments of a vocabulary,
of change in Genie during this period. Physically, socially, and emotionally, “% she began—at first slowly, then toward May, much more rapidly—to learn the
Genie was changing, growing, and developing, and beginning to realizeasmall #% names for almost everything around her. When she wanted to learn the word

portion of her human potential. a for something, she would take the hand of someone nearby and place it on the
Genie was developing cognitively and intellectually as well. Her visibly object or point it toward the object of her attention as best she could. Hungry
increasing cognitive awareness and functioning were reflected in her test per- to learn the words for all the new items filling her senses, she would at times
formances, even though testing Genie was extremely difficult and in many ways 4 point to the whole outdoors and become frustrated and angry when someone
not comparable to testing a normal child (see Part II, Chapter 6). | failed to immediately identify the particular object she was focused on. The
In January, Genie received a score of 4 years, 9 months on the Leiter % number of words she recognized grew sizably, probably totaling hundreds of
International Performance Scale, a nonverbal test of cognitive abilities. In & words by June, 1971.
February, an attempt was made to give her the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic &% As her receptive vocabulary grew, her productive vocabulary increased as
Abilities (ITPA). Although most subsections were unscorable, she did score at © well. From stopit, which was nothing more than a ritualized expression of play,
the level of 3 years, 1 month on the visual sequential memory subsection and at 3 Genie began to speak words spontaneously, purposefully, and appropriately.
the level of 2 years, 6 months on the visual association subsection. In April,
when the Leiter was repeated, she passed all items through the 4-year level, &
% She began to say Mama, spit, and back; by May 1971 she was spontaneously
saying numbers from one through five, color words, the verbs open, blow, and
half at the 5-year level and half at the 6-year level. 4 others, and many, many nouns. If asked the name for something in her sur-
Observations by psychologists who were called in as consultants showed 3; toundings, she could almost always provide it.
that Genie wasdemonstrating increasing cognitive abilities. They also noteda 4% The examples of Genie's spontaneous use of vocabulary during this period
surprising in her abilities. Dr. Jeanne Block, in February of 1971, noted
scatter EE in the following set of examples are taken mostly from notes made by Dr. K,
that while Genie failed some items on the Vineland Scale at the 2-year level & with a few additional samples from my own notes when I began working with
(masticates food, uses names for familiar objects, talks in short sentences), she = Genie in June 1971.
passed other items at the 8 to 9-year level (does routine tasks, cleans up, bathes ¥
self). Dr. Jack Block, also in February of 1971, noted that in some ways her a 3/3/71 K: We have to put it away now.

behavior was that of a 2-year-old, in others like a 5-year-old, and in still others x G: Back.

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 16 Genie: A 17
Psycholinguistic Study January 1971-June 1971

4/23/71 G: Put
back. (P robably one
word, said when she wanted the teacher to ~
5/18/71 a. J (teacher at Rehabilitation Center): Leave the pan in the car. “

put things back on the bulletin board.) “ Genie did so. (There was a pan, a balloon, and a bracelet. She took
6/2/71 G: balloon; ball; turtle; “ the items about which nothing was said with her.)
store. (Spoken upon seeing the articles.)eo,
a b. Genie tried to pull a plastic bag off a roll in the store.
6/3/71 G: Open. (Said when n
!
:

some
.

carrots, pushing
sh
she wante 4 K to open the cage and
K’s hand to the door of the
give the rabbit i J: Pull hard.
cage as she spoke.) “2 G: Pull. (She pulled harder than before.)
ie Genie said Pull spontaneously when she found another roll.
| 6/9/71 K: That's hot.
G: Burn.
: 5/24/71 a. J: What's this? (referring to a frying pan).
; G: Pan.
6/14/71 G: Spit (grabbing K’s coat and spitting).
G: Car (seeing K’s car in the lot). : b. J:
Scrub them with the
brush.
6/16/11 G: Dish; pan; basker. i ci: Flughthewien
6/22/71 G: Mirror; come; dog; box; bulb. s Genie did so.

a d. Genie found some trays and couldn’t reach them.

6/23/71 a. G: Doctor, come. (to K)
...
= K: How many do you want?
b. G: Big (looking at a big turtle). = G: Three. Four. Five. Ten.
c. G: Balloon; gone (referring to lemonade that was gone). “S (She made appropriate gestures with her fingers to indicate the
get; back; bracelet; doll; dog. By numbers. There were pauses between each response.)
6/28/71 G: Fall. (Spoken as she walked to a railing, apparently concerned about = 5/25/71 a. K phoned Genie and said he’d come at 5:00. J gave Genie a play :

the height.) z clock and told her to set it at 5:00. Genie did so. J then said, Four.

‘®. Genie changed the hands to 4:00. J said, Later. Genie said, Now.
6/30/71 G: Store.
.
:

(Pulling on K to take her out of the

workroom.) 2 b. K: What is that? (referring to achaise lounge in a store).
G: Shower. (Spoken to the nurse after she had gotten her things together & G: Bed.
to take a shower.) &
broken, Genie.
.
.

K: The zipper
.

¥ §/29/71 a. is

Genie went to the nurses’ station and got safety pin from drawer,
. g a a

It
is apparent from these
examples that Genie was developing a sizable 4 without assistance.
productive vocabulary, especially toward the end of this period 3 b. There was a picture of a dog on a dogfood bowl.
(April, Ma
and June). But language is not simply
knowledge of words: it is, more impor. A K: Is that a bird?

tantly, knowledge of the grammar. More significant than the

vocabulary,
development of = G: No. Dog.

then,
was the emergence of comprehension of sentences spoken to
her. In contrast with the first months, several
2 6/14/71 a. Genie threw her glasses up on the roof.

incidents reported in Dr. K’s notes f K: Where are your glasses?

or
documented on videotape
from this second period suggest such
compre-
m Genie took him outside and looked at the roof and laughed.
hension. Although as before,
many, probably most, documented situations ” b. Genie seemed to make a distinction between a “pail” and a “bucket.”

during this period demonstrate a lack of comprehension, a few

reported events os -
Ki Whai's this?
G: Pail
as given below, point to the emergence of comprehension. ue
os K: What's this? (Pointing to what he thought was another pail.)
G: Bucket.
4/23/71 Her teacher
asked another child with two balloons how
many he had.
5
He said three. Genie looked startled and
gave him another balloon.
: These examples show that Genie was beginning to learn language. She was

5/4/7) a. Genie took one necklace. K said, You can have two. Genie took beginning to comprehend more than one word at a time, and she was beginning
another one, to speak. Her production appeared to lag behind her comprehension, but
b.
enn Sno give
me

them
the bracelets. Genie “showed” them to him.
to him.)
(She exactly what and how much she understood we still did not know, as there was
no systematic investigation of her knowledgeof language until after this period.

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.

Genie: A
Psycholinguistic Study a
Genie had changed from the painfully small, thin,
admitted to the hospital months
pitiful creature that was £
before. She had taller, heavier,
self-assured, more aware of herself,
grown more ’
edgeable in the
more
Physically developed, more knowl- $8.
social-psychological
remained a severely disturbed and
potential yet untapped. And she was
aspects of normal human life. But
underdeveloped human being,
Genie
her human j
2 A
past fourteen. Time was not on her side. i
\

$f June 1971—August 1971

a I first met Genie in June 1971.

[ remember how small she
2 thin, so completely unlike a normal 14-year-old was, so little, so
ae girl.
I was apprehensive about
meeting her, and so at first examined her from
Jf distance. Her dress was too a
long for her, and she was barefoot, both somehow
a stressing how painfully small she was for her
age. Her movements were
BP: yet syncopated rather than even. Her walk was slow,
ei stiff-legged and jerky, Even her
stationary stance appeared uneven in the sense that
= still one though she was standing
instinctivelyknew that she was not a normal
4 I ventured closer. Her hair person.
was
mousy and thin; her teeth were jagged, or
g fanged, and terribly discolored. And
yet she was pretty. Considering all of the
= pitiful and strange aspects of her
appearance, it seems remarkable that she could
a have seemed pretty, but she did. Her
skin was beautiful—soft,
3 faint touch of pink on each white, with a
cheek, almost as if an artist had painted each
4 them carefully and one of

2
delicately.
Her nose was small and
beautifully shaped, turned
Up Slightly, finely drawn like that of a china
ever so
.

3 Most of all, though, her beauty lay in her

doll.
s eyes—big, gray, deep. The whole
Story of her past, all of the neglect, abuse,
pain, and misery, seemed to lie within.
FS There was a softness about
Genie, a softness in her expression, a softness
é in her
manner, a softness in the way she looked at
t stiffness and jerkiness, a softness in everything, and despite her
the way she carried herself
3 Perhaps it was really timidity. Whatever the and moved.
reason, despite her peculiarity,
: she projected an
appealing softness.
: Such was her appearance. As I
got to know her, I learned that not
a thing about her was soft and appealing. Her every-
behavior was quite another matter,
3
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 ,

20 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study 4 June 1971-August 1971 21

Genie had many distasteful mannerisms and her behavior often discon- : a behavior, though charming and even endearing
a ready
was to walk on. All of this
certing and unpalatable. She salivated copiously, and spit out her saliva onto
_

embarrassing.
in the abstract, was quite
|

:
anything near her—her body, her clothing, even (as I unfortunately learned “Sf Genie masturbated excessively, which proved to be the most serious
rather quickly) onto a companion’s clothing or body. Since her body and
2 antisocial behavior problem of all. Despite admonishments, she continued to
clothing were filled with spit, she reeked of
a foul odor. 4§ masturbate as often as possible, anywhere and everywhere. We have no know-
Her eating habits were also disturbing. Never having had solid foods, she EE.

ledge of whether she had been sexually abused by her father or brother, but she
did not know how to chew. When given solid foods Genie would typically stuff
=r. preferredthe company of men and when in their
companyusually tried to get
her mouth with food and wait—cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk
storing them involved. Many of the items she coveted were objects with
which to mas-
nuts—until her saliva could break down the food. Often, when she gottiredof
#% turbate, and she would attempt to do so, regardless of where she was. She was
waiting, she would spit out the food in her mouth onto her plate, and then play ff drawn to chair backs, chair arms, counter edges, door knobs, door edges, table
with it and the rest of her food with her fingers, usually making circles of mush 2 Do corners, car handles, car mirrors, and so forth; in essence, indoors and out-
out of the food on her plate.
& } doors she was continually attempting to masturbate. Learning to these control
Genie had habit of walking
a during mealtime, stopping at other
around i desires has been terribly difficult for Genie, and now, 4 years later, it 1s still a
children’s places at the table, sometimes attempting to take their portions of
3 problem.’ -
foods she especially liked (applesauce, milk, ice cream, etc.). She often walked
x Despite all of these difficulties, going out with Genie was fascinating. To
a

around with her mouth stuffed with food, and during her journey around the
= see her explore and hungrily take in the colors, textures, and sights of every-
;

dining room she would sometimes spit it out onto the nearest plate. Perhaps, in = thing around her was a moving experience, but one of the most enriching aspects
her bizarre unsocialized way, she was giving the other children an
“offering” of being in public with Genie was to witness people’s reactions and responses
of food, to make up for the (unwilling and unoffered) offering of what she was
2 to her. Many people were unkind or attempted to ignore her and move
them-
about to take from them. In any case, her “offering” was never welcome, and
2 selves away from her. But many others were remarkably patient and sensitive
mealtime with Genie was usually not a pleasant event.
P| to her.
Genie had other personal habits that were not socially acceptable. She blew
SE One remarkable individual was a man who worked behind the meat counter
her nose onto anything or nothing, often making a mess of her clothing. At
= at aSafeway store. Genie was by the meat section and used to spend
fascinated
times, when excited or agitated, she would urinate in inappropriate places— @ quite long
a time there, touching and examining all of the packages. This man
leaving her companion to deal with the results. But it was her lack of socializa- 3 evidently noticed her interest, and without asking any questions about her,
tion that was most difficult to deal with, especially in public. Genie had a special
ae one day slid open the window above the counter where she was standing, and
fondness for certain things—anything made of plastic, certain foods, certain
a held out a piece of meat—unwrapped—for her to touch, smell, and examine for
articles of clothing or accessories. If anyone she encountered in the street or ina
gs as long as she wished. In this silent fashion, over a period of months, he brought
Store or other public place had something she liked, she was
uncontrollably
drawn to him or her, and without obeying any rules of psychological distance
2 out bones, fish, chickens, turkeys, and every kind of meat for her to study and

Be experience. He never asked any questions; he never spoke a word to her. With-
or social mores, she would
go right up to the person and put her hands on the a out knowing anything about her, he simply accepted her on her own terms and
desired item. It was bad enough when she went up to someone else’s oe
|
shopping gave to her without asking anything in return, not even a greeting. We were all
cart to reach in to take something out; but when the object of attention was an
Py sad when this man stopped working there. We never knew his name. We never
article of clothing, and Genie would simply attach herself to the
personwearing a thanked him.
that clothing and refuse to let go, the situations were extremely trying,
= The first month, when I saw Genie almost daily, I spent the time trying to
Even when Genie did not attach herself in quite such an embarrassing
get to know her and to establish a relationship with her that would help her
manner, she still went right up to strangers, stood directly in front of them, Zz
develop trust in me and enable me to work with her effectively. At that time she
without any accepted distance between them, and peered into their faces with ¢
her face directly in front of theirs, pointing (without looking) at whatever ; was still not testable, and was so bizarre in her behavior that had I attempted to

gain information formally from her, I would not have known how to interpret

|
possession of theirs held her interest. Other times, she
to them and linked her arm through theirs or
very simply walked up "
Since the time of writing, Genie’s inappropriate masturbatory behavior has almost entirely
put her arm around them and was x
disappeared.

https://pdfify.app/trial
 22 .
Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study
ca
a June 1971—August 1971 23

_ her performance. Thus, I spent my time with her simply joining her inactivities, 2 F. “small” and at one point “small turtle.” A little later, we saw a pile of different-
;
_

taking her to
,

visitplaces, being with her, and talking to her. Very often Dr. K was e sized balls. Genie pointed to a big one and said, Big.
with us, and although J refrained from making notes when I was
talking with $8 Dr. K noticed that Genie had to go to the bathroom. He to her,
said
Genie, I did take some notes when Dr. K or someone else was
talking with her, at repeated, Bathroom. The store did not have
Maybe they have a bathroom. Genie
so that I would have
some record of her language during each of

Most of the time Genie said nothing. She rarely, almost

my visits.
never, in fact, said
3aE .

one, and at the next storefront, Genie spontaneously said, Bathroom. None of
the stores had restrooms, so we returned to the Rehabilitation Center.
anything except in answer to a direct question. Most of the time she merely %& We walked into the parking lot, and when she spotted Dr. K’s car, Genie
.

emitted squeaks and whimpers and nothing more. But now and thenshe every
8°
spontaneously said, Car.
did speak; she even initiated speech, and I found that as the days wore on I was =e. On June 16, 1971, we visited the home of
another therapist, Dr. R. Genie was
glad I had brought pen and paper. 5 intrigued with houses. On walks, she would often go to the front door of
For example, on June 14, 1971, when I arrived at the Rehabilitation
Genie had thrown the glasses that had just been prescribed for her
Center, 3
48:
house, hoping that someone would open the door and let her inside. To this
a
upontothe girl who had spent her life on only one side of her bedroom door, every door held
roof of the building. When Dr. K came, he noticed that she was not
wearing the bP . the promise of new discoveries, new sights, new smells, a new world. So, on
glasses, so he asked, * that day,a visit to the R house was a great adventure for her. She eagerly explored
s every room, running her fingers along the walls and furniture, intently examining
K: Where are your glasses? & each thing she saw. .
G took him outside and looked at the roof and “Ss of
.

laughed. She was having such a good time, she didn’t want to interact with any us
K: We'll have to get the ladder.
eS and ignored our attempts to engage her or signal her that it was soon time
G: Ladder [led]. 2 to leave. Finally, Dr. K got her attention and explained that it was time to go
K: The glasses are up there. (Pointing to the roof) & and that she should put on her coat. A search for her coat followed; after a few
G: Up. Up. Up.
3 minutes, Dr. K asked her, What are we looking for? Genie answered, Coat.

After the glasses-on-the-roof episode, the three of us went to a shoppingcenter, Before leaving, we all gathered in the kitchen. Genie was holding a deco-
Genie seemed thrilled to leave Rehab and could hardly wait until we reached
s rator pillow in her arms. Dr. K said, Tell Dr. R what that is. Genie turned to
the shopping center. As we drove along, she pointed to
every building we -% Dr. R and said, Pillow. There was a cat in the house and Dr. R asked Genie if
passed en route and “asked” store? (She said the word with a quizzical look = she wanted to see it. No. No. Cat, Genie replied, shaking her head vehemently.
on her face, but without a pitch change.)
& As my visits with Genie at the Rehabilitation Center continued, I
became
We went to Woolworth’s and walked around the store together, Genie x familiar with some of the “rituals” used with her. She had learned to say certain
curiously examining almost everything. There were two sections of the store | specific things “on cue.” For example, if she wanted something that she couldn't
where Genie spent the most time, the aisle with plastic containers and thesection
¥ reach, the ritual was: -

with live animals. We could hardly draw her away from the aisle of <
plastics.
What (One
x:G: Getit. do 5
She longingly fondled every item on the shelves—from wastebaskets to freezer g you want’
.

containers. While she

.

“a word to her.)
storage was so totally focused
the array before her,
on =
Dr. K pointed out that Genie made a distinction between pails and buckets on
} If she sat in a car waiting to go for a ride, the ritual was:
the basis of some classification which he had not yet figured out. As there were Es
-

plenty of plastic pails before us, Dr. K said he’d demonstrate this to me. Pointing
to a pail, he asked Genie
2 G: Turnon. (One word to her.)
what
it was. She replied, Pail. pointing to what
he assumed was another pail, he asked, What's this? Genie answered, Bucket.
Then 2 Then the driver would start the engine. If Genie wanted a container, a door, or

I couldn't see the difference; Dr. K. couldn’t see the difference. But Genie could.
# window opened, the ritual was:
z ,

We finally moved on to the animals. We talked to her about how different

in size the different animals were, and Genie imitated the words “big” and
: X: What do you want?
é G: Open.

&

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 24
Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study a
-

June 1971—August 1971 25

__

Later she would say open without

prompting. { .
she
Come was. , to some de gree, queen of her new environment. But no institutional
;

wanted someone to come with her or zis

.
ee
come to see her, she would say,
ie ‘ setting can offer the warmth of a real home; and so it was fortunate that cir-
Many, if not all, of these rituals had been taught to her by the staffwith the a cumstances developed that led to Genie’s placement in a foster
home. In late
“what-do-you-say” method, but by the time I met her, the staff interacting with Tune 1971, Genie
aa exposed to the German
from the other children ; staff the hospitalmeasi esand had could Prove
at to Be isolated
her no longer needed to use the The realized
at that it
“what-do-you-say” cues. I had to piece together
the background for her stereotypic
utterances at certain times were
utterances, noticing at first only that her
very predictable. Another predictable feature of
gg
=
from th, etback
rom the Bout’
other chi
ren. It devel
was t
o pment
s
" vs to Peconfined and solates
imperative
erefore felt
separate
were

that Genie be

her speech at this point was her

repetition of the last word of most utterances © from the
others by placin 8
home.
her in
afoster
addressed to her. Examples occurring on June Following
decision,
this Genie f
;

fo
22, 1971 are given below: 4 lovi move
was a foster setting—a war
oving household with teenage boys (Mike and Sam),
two an adolescent girl

a. K: You're angry "

a = (Ann), a dog (Spot), and
cat. In this a
home, Genie had her ownnew room
and
G: Angry. an her own bathroom, large backyard play in, and foster family to
a to a provide
b. K: Do you want to touch it? ae her with companionship, affection, guidance, help, and attention. When
care,
G: Touch.
a she moved to this new home she
largely unsocialized and underdevel-
was still
K: Should I do it?
c.
1% oped, but whereas her previous settings had been largely unrestrictive, Genie
G: Do it. .

now found herself in an environment that placed demands and

d. K: It’s stuck.
challenges before
\ iz her, and thus was to offer her new, directed opportunities for growth and change.
G: Stuck.
K: I have
ag Her first opportunity came the day she moved in.
e. to go home.
G: Home.
a Her new family had a dog. Although only a puppy, it was a golden retriever
BE. and thus not a small dog. We knew that Genie was afraid of dogs, but at that
f.
K: areyeu angry?
, ,
3 point no one knew about the father’s dog-like behavior, and so no one knew the
a basis for her fear. It was assumed that Genie’s fear was simply irrational and
At other times her speech was more purposeful and clearly uncued, and her e pafounded. The signs that her fear was deep-rooted and
strong were there,

Pehavior compe oo ly1, 197 C Crenie hadoon orsocialsituations a Genie normally moved extremely slowly, almost in
slowmotion, but at the
bought for her. She was
one of them, a little girl, asked to
sitting with
children, eating her gumdrops, when
some a en or soneor the dog
pproaching,Genie moved quickly darting sly to

b a he “\Tand th me aah tafamily

. Some im onto
see Genie’s gumdrops. Genie
quickly drew b room, ee urioUusty to

tn he‘
them toward herself and : aner ee The
nontneists
the
away from the little girl, slyly looked at her, and con- a ho amen be the
ane insisted,
tinued eating, a little more quickly at this
asked if the little girl could look at the
point. Dr. K, noticing the situation, Bi tithe few d Gonos
eee:
‘0
a he “ household.
“

Nea
as

ae *

pretended she didn’t hear

gumdrops. Genie avoided his eyes and 4
Stay near
Foe
the ays what
dog;
ne hee

more, she learned to pet

ee aesire to escape and learned to
or understand. 2
is
her, feed her, and to her.
walk
While Genie lived at the Rehabilitation
Center, she had her own bed in ¥ it evesnot unulmany months later,
was
found
when the foster mother Genie frozen
a room that housed
3 oraching chow hav.
ave appened, thatwe
a
eight children, and her own Storage cupboard by her bed.
Dr. K often took her on excursions in the area
.

a his P
id heppe that ed,

‘e's
leaned abot
around the Center, and at the - theron as to way this shou
we learned about Genie’s
Rehabilitation Center, for the most part, she was permitted to do
as she wished. a fat er andbarking,
his bizarre and pathological dog-like behavior.Genie associated her
She had made known her mania for plastic and had
amassed a sizable collection a aterdogs s growling, teeth-baring
dog-like and other
mannerisms with
of plastic items, including beads, containers, and
wastebaskets. She had twenty- 3 dieiscovery, longtransferred
and
her her terror of
father dogs. only to It was with this
three plastic wastebaskets stacked
up by her bed, which Dr. K. had purchased 4 after Genie had required confront fear
been to her and learn to
for her when they went out shopping. She had
staff at the Rehabilitation Center, and
become attached to several of the
having become a proficient manipulator
;
3
here, wethe oo
sfore her and
in her
home,
what remarkable
that
strength
how great
we realized
she had shown.
a task had been set

4
of these people, usually had her
way with them. She was more than settled in,
|

Es]
https://pdfify.app/trial
q
 x:
oe
oe .

ae
#
g September 1971—June 1975

;2B Some of Genie’s behavior which I

shared with her are
witnessed, and some of the moments I
presented here since they provide a more complete picture
am of this remarkable girl. Chapters 2—4 dealt primarily with her behavior while
a at the Rehabilitation Center. What follows covers incidents during her entire

ei development up to this writing.

te
y 5.1. DELAYED RESPONSES
=
|

as As we began to learn more about Genie, we learned that we couldn’t always

= judge by her initial response whether or not she had comprehended something.
x Typically, there was a latency in her responses that went along with her general
= slowness to move or react.

sz If someone asked Genie to answer a question, to turn offa light, or to get

ee something from the kitchen, and so forth, Genie would often act as if she had
- not been spoken to. Then, 10 or 15 minutes later, she would obey the
request. For
ae example, on November 11, 1971, Genie and I had gone to the hospital to run
a a
some errands. We saw friend named Rita. I said to Genie, Tell Rita who
you
3 went to see this morning. Genie said nothing. After about 5 to 10 minutes and

a much conversation had intervened, Genie said grandma—the answer to my

x question,
* This pattern of delay in response to a stimulus remained part of Genie’s
ga behavior for many years. It was not just true for language. For example, on

x
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|

28 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study September 1971—June 1975 29

&

February 5, 1973, when I Genie, I rang the bell many, many times
went to visit 3 her capabilities by only through getting to know her,
her behavior. It was

before Genie bothered to the door. She finally came to the window to
answer
= _ through being with long period of time, that we were able
her often and over a

peer out to see who was at the door. I waved frantically

at her. When she opened
x - to determine what she knew, what she could do, and what she did do.
the door, she said, Curtiss waving, as if were the one exhibiting strange behavior. &
|

At the time of this writing she continues to delay in her response to questions ie
5.3. HAPLOLOGIES
or requests as is shown in the conversation below. On May 14, 1975 she was :5
talking to her foster mother, M, about a student car wash her school held: _ a ; oo,

sf For almost 2 years Genie talked primarily in one-word utterances, even

+e though she was capable of producing longer strings. For the next 2 years she
At schoo! ashing
. .

G: is car.
= talked primarily in two-word strings, even though by then her grammatical
M: Whose car did you wash? am
capabilitieshad developed
et

G: People[’s] car. j farwho

beyond the two-word stage. Genie became known
M: How many cars did you wash? a as the Great
Abbreviator, managed to get her way and make her thoughts
G: Two car[s] ee and wishes known without hardly saying anything. At one point she began to
M: Were they big cars or little cars? aa collapse words and create one-syllable utterances to represent strings that earlier
G: Big car. & would have been several words in length. For example, on May 1, 1972, for the
M: What were the colors of the cars? s sentence M come back, she produced [mek], and for the utterance, Monday

gf Curtiss come, she produced [m ~k]. M and I told Genie that we were unable
G walked out of the room. M and I
few minutes. G then ap-
talked for a & to talk to her in this way. Sensing that she had overstepped the bounds of

proachedM and said, Blue and orange car—the answer to M’s question. & acceptability, she abandoned such extreme reductions.

ss 5.4. RITUALISTIC SPEECH

5.2. LAZY BEHAVIOR
e .

2 As mentioned above, there were typical ritual exchanges between Genie

It also became evident that Genie continually chose the path of least effort. = and the people around her. Genie’s dependence on ritual expressions continues
She didn’t initiate action. She moved slowly and listlessly; she allowed others to = to this day.
do things for her that she was capable of performing herself. Although being a Much of this ritualistic behavior
was the result of routines taught to her.
taught to and encouraged to chew, she continued to let her saliva break down the = Early rituals taught to her were Give me X, I want X, and Help me X,
food in her mouth, rather than chew it, and she continued to select foodswhich a A typical exchange during mealtimes is illustrated by the following dialogue
did not require chewing as often as she could. When being taught to print, she g which occurred on November 17, 1971.
held her pencil loosely, making barely visible marks on the paper. She would &
follow directions, obey orders, and cooperate in activities, but she did not initiate & M: G, say give me bread and butter.
activity. Similarly, in her use of language, Genie spoke as little as possible and & G: Give me bread. .

in the shortest utterances she could use and still manage to communicate. Thus, a M: And butter.
almost all of the time she spoke in one-word utterances. We discovered that = G: Butter.

she was capable of producing longer only observing sentences from instances 4 Genie asked for soup by saying, “Soup.”
when she failed to communicate with one word and had to elaborate and use
7
4
M: Say, Give me soup.
more language, or from those even rarer moments when she put two or three G: Give
me.

words together without special prompting or encouragement. From such - M: Give me soup.
singular instances we were

ability to use expressive language.

able to observe that Genie was developing in her
s
i G: Give me soup.

She thus presented a misleading picture; she was capable of producing : Each instance of “Give me” was accompanied with the same two-handed
longer and more complex strings than those she generally used. She masked z gesture, first pointing outward with both hands, then pointing to herself.

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 30 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study September 1971—June 1975 3i
4

Later rituals included May I have X. Instead of Give me X, Genie learned to ZL There were attempts to teach her other rituals, for example, to ask specific
"use this stereotypic phrase, as shown in the following examples: nap questions. This attempt failed. Genie could not memorize a well-formed WH-
& question. She would respond to What do you say ?demands with ungrammatical,
MayI have circle. a bizarre phrases that included WH-question words, but she was unable to come
May I have box. a up with a phrase she had been trained to say. For example, instead of saying
the

May I have graham cracker. & requested Where are the graham crackers? she would say I where is graham
May I have material. as cracker, or I where is graham cracker on top shelf. In addition, under pressure
May I have rug.
¥ to use WH-question words, she came out with sentences such as:

She learned to say this phrase more readily and more frequently than earlier x Where is tomorrow Mrs. L?

rituals, although using the correct ritual did not always get her what she wanted. Where is stop spitting?

For example, on November 21, 1973, Genie and I were in the kitchen eating if. Where is May I
have
ten pennies?
When is stop spitting ?
cupcakes. cupcakes
The a were on plastic tray, and Genie wanted the tray ‘=
(probably because tt was made of plastic). She asked me, May I have tray. | ae .

replied, You have to ask M. Her foster mother was in the other room. Genie went we This illustrates that Genie, like normal children, was unable to imitate or even
into the other room to ask her for the tray. By the time she got there she had if retain in memory, syntactic structures which were not in keeping with her
decided to ask for the paper cupcake wrapper instead. Ask M. May I have paper. = grammatical development.
M, tired of her requests for trash, changed the subject. Would you like to have Bs Attempts were phrases to help her deal
also made to teach her functional
some milk with your cupcake ? Genie answered, Genie mad. Genie mad. Genie mad. iS example, at a special school Genie attended in 1973,
with real-life situations. For
Genie discovered some power with this ritual phrase.- Starting in the Se one of her classmates (P) was evidently pinching her every day and hurting her.

summer of 1973, those who worked with her began to pay her for her work in a We attempted to teach her something to say to the child to make that child stop
pennies, dimes, and quarters. For setting the table she received ten pennies. sa pinching her. For example, on October 23, 1973:
It was during this period that Genie was also being taught to count, so as often ie
as possible she was paid in pennies which she was required to count before they
ap Genie talked about P’s pinching her arm at school. We went through a mini-
became hers. In addition to being paid for performing, Genie was learning to a sociodrama to aid her in dealing with the real situation when it arose in school.
save
her money to buy items she wanted, toy plastic cars and boats, plastic a C: What do you say when Ppinches you?
containers of all sorts, plastic jewelry, wastebaskets, anything plastic that caught
E G: Go way, P.,

her fancy at the stores she shopped in. Because of this, she soon learned the ee
ae le
ple, on
netreward 1973:_—
December 5,
and let anyone escape without paying her. For
1
;
Unfortunately, Genie wasn’t able to use this phrase when the real situation con-
rr
fronted her, and suffered many bruises on her arm asa result of all the pinching.
.

% Two points here are worth noting. First, it is interesting that the people
Late the afternoon, close to
dinner,and
I was
.

playing the
.

piano for
Genie. She was €
in
2 around Genie, without systematically analyzing her use of language or deter-
uncontrollably drawn
to the music never moved away until I stopped. On
that day, I realized the importance that money had assumed for her because even
e=
mining what was absent from it, sensed her need to learn how to make requests

and tried to give hera method for doing The only questions
. .
. . .

and ask questions so.

though I was in the midst of playing, Genie heard sounds from the kitchen 8

which indicated to her that else was going to set the table. Setting the
someone ae and requests Genie
has formulated to this day have been of the form first
table was Genie’s chore. No going to cheat her out of those ten pennies.
one was
ye modeledfor her : This is in striking contrast to the novel and spon- obviously
Leaving me at the piano, something she had never done before, she marched a) taneous linguistic forms that are products of her own grammatical system.
into the kitchen saying, Set table. M set table. She pushed M out of the way and sy Second, these ritual uses of language are not language rituals usually referred
finished setting the table herself. After she had finished, she said, May I have 2 to as such, the automatic phrases used in particular social situations, such as
ten penny. v “Hello,” “How are you?,” “Thank you,” and “Gezundheit.” There have been

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 1971—June 1975
33
Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study September
32

name for me) since from September, 1972 on, I have

been
well. These attempts have been largely un- (1) like Curtiss, (her
attempts to teach Genie these as I like Curtiss visit, almost without exception.
are absent from Genie’s language. (See Part greeted door with,
at the on every
successful, and such social rituals
(This use of “I like X” is similar to phatic greetings, such as “Hello.”)
,

III, Section 11.5 for elaboration.)

to her by others, Genie has created her Such ritual expressions are a major and frequent source of ungrammati-
In addition to those rituals taught
When Genie wants to talk about something, she often uses a fixed phrase cality in Genie’s speech. (See Part II, Section 9.11.1 for a discussion.)
own.

to mean:

|communicate| talk 5.5. “TUNING IN” TO LANGUAGE

I'm
eon
want
ho about X.
.

As October of 1971, it became clear that Genie was beginning to

early as
be

in this way. responsive in numerous linguistic situations. That is, prior to this period she
In the early days, she used the word “hurt”
appeared to ignore all language use around her unless she herself was addressed.
Doctor hurt. Cat hurt. ,

On October 13, 1971 I noted:

Hospital hurt. Dog hurt.
Hurt cat. Fireplace hurt. Genie listened to three stories. It was the first time she seemed to be interested in
Snow hurt. Elevator hurt.
and to comprehend what was being read. Her facial expressions as well as her
Fish hurt. Ocean hurt. to the
gestures indicated appropriate emotional responses story.
not refer to the
From the context it is clear that the examples cited above did
extremely long of language used around her are
lexicalmeaning of the word “hurt.” More recently, and for an Other indications of her increased awareness

period in her development, she has used ‘(I) like’ in this way. shown by the following examples.
As my visits to the foster home increased, I became friends with the foster
one of
with
:

old school.
engage in conversation
.

Like
Genie. Often, would
:
ob
Like ball.
:

I
as
. .

family, well as with

.

Like Nancy. I like enough money.

the family. Usually during such times Genie would ignore us, sometimes even

Like Lyn. I like two towel.

leave the room; other times, if she wanted attention, she would attempt to
Like mirror. I like yell.
prevent us from talking by standing between us, or plopping
to each other
Like beach. I like excited.
I like
herself down on one of our laps, thereby blocking our view, and she hoped, our
Like Grandma. grab.
Like trip. I like doctor. ability to keep the conversation going. Every now and then, though, she would
Like rug. I like shape. surprise us and actually listen to what was being said.
I like bag.
Like fish.
while M was dis-
Like floor. I like Mama Saturday. 12/27/71. During lunch, Genie said, lot food and lot animal
their the [a visit to the mountains} and Genie’s trip to
Like dog. I like laughing funny. cussing trip to snow

Like I like M fix teeth. the zoo. Genie wanted to be part of the conversation. At one point in the con-
pinky.
Like hanger. I like grab J. versation, M used the word “hardly” in a sentence. Genie recognized the mor-
had
Like doll bend. I like hurt finger. pheme “hard” and said, Hard. Then M began talking about a couple they
I like animal have bad cold. visited that weekend. Genie listened and said, big house and tiny baby in reference
I like hate school. to that visit.
I like hate father.
2/23/72. Genie had an earache. M and I were talking about the earwax and M
told that she had put medication in Genie’s ear to dissolve the wax. Genie
(It should be noted that she was able to use the expression “T like” appropriately, me

was listening and at that point interjected, Five drop. M explained that she had
as example, “J like V[’s] man (7/74).)
in the |

put in five drops of medicine.

This type of stereotypic communication became so predominant in Genie’s
she After returned home from afternoon excursions, I talked to M
speech that I can often predict with a great deal of accuracy what sentences
our
5/8/74. we

few minutes. I asked about friend, Nadine’s, working with

is going to produce. For example, I know that when she greets me she will say, for a a question a

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34 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study : September 1971—June 1975 35

Genie the next day at school. M answered, I dont know. Evidently Genie de piano for her. While I was playing, Genie began talking to herself and making
ae
~

wanted M to answer yes to that question, because as soon as M answered I don't her gesture for “naughty” over and over again. I asked her to tell me what she
know to me, Genie came between us and clearly said, Yes. eee. was saying, so she came over to me and said, Little bad boy, and then, Bad gun.
Fe She continued repeating these phrases aloud to herself for several minutes

As shown by these examples, Genie became more sensitive to the social e while I played along with her gesture for “naughty.” It was
the first time I had
or recall an
interaction of conversations and anxious to join in and be part of the group.
a = ever seen
her recapitulate event to
herself with language. She

It was amusing and touching to see

often what she would do to “join in.” For
3s anes Sclighted
eugmee
with herself, and she didn’t know it, but I was even more

example, early 1972, during a family dinner conversation about renting

in ®
property, the word “tenant” was frequently used; at one point upon hearing ==
has spoken
; ;

the word “tenant,” Genie joined in by saying ten and holding up ten fingers. From that time on Genie of her past to us—not often and
At times her interruptions showed not only that she was listening to the se usually any length—butstill
not at
has use
language to express
she been able to
thoughts and feelings about a time in her life she alone had experienced. Through
conversation, but also that she was learning to use language in a creative way. 3
For example, on September 26, 1973: #e language, Genie has been able totell us details of her confinement previously

M and I were discussing family’s upcoming trip to Yosemite. Genie was

the
to go along, and she was apprehensive about going. As she listened to us dis-
4
-

as
unknown to us. For example, Genie said, Father hit arm. Big wood. Genie cry.
It was from statements like these that
beat her with a large wooden
we learned that Genie’s father used to
making noise.
At another time, Genie
stick for
cussing the trip, she interjected, Little bit trip, expressing her wish that the trip = said, Not spit. Father. Hit face—spit. Thus we learned that Genie’s father used
would be short. ae to wipe Genie’s face in her spit when she spit out food or saliva. These events

3 were corroborated by her mother.

Another development in this area of paying attention to the conversations 2% As her language ability grew, descriptions of past events increased in
her
around her is shown by her ability to remember the import of a conversation: Bs ‘detail and richness. In contrast to Genie’s early statements given above, some of
she has heard and to recount it later to someone not present when the conversa- ee her later descriptions of how her father beat her for making noise are:
tion took place. is
On May 20, 1975 Genie listened as neighbors recounted a story about “3% Father
hitbigstick. Father is angry. \

rauner Genie big stick. c

Mh
going camping with their new baby. The story was not directed to her, nor was
Father make mecre
it. Cry.
she involved. But she listened, understood, and related it much later to D, her Be
foster father, who was not present at the original story-telling.
z Father is dead.

- Ona occasions Genie has produced long passages of memories. See

few
Part I, Section 9.3.6 for examples.
56. NEW USES FOR LANGUAGE ei 3

Bd In addition to using language to talk about her past, Genie began to use
language to manipulate others—or at least to try to.
In January, 1972, Genie used language for the first time in reflectingabouta <@
past event. §
= 1/12/72. Genie wandered into [her foster sister] Ann’s room. I followed her

1/5/72. Two weeksprior to this date Genie had had a disconcerting experience = and as soon as Genie saw me she said, Annpencil. D [her foster father] heard
at the hospital. When we had walked down the hall, a little boy came up to us Be her and came into the room scolding Genie for being there, explaining to me.

that Ann had

colored
pens that Genie was attracted to and that Genie
holding a toy gun and pretended to shoot us repeatedly. Genie was visibly
frightened. Despite my requests and admonishments, the little boy persisted
4
ae had previously
some

gone into Ann’s room to get them. D then explained to Genie

in his pretend shooting, and as he continued, Genie clung to me more and more. ay that
she could not have Ann's pens—that Ann had her pens and Genie had hers.
Genie then said D errand. Genie telling him to go away that she could
e+
was so
We walked away as quickly as we could, and we talked at some length about
do what she wanted.
guns and pretending. I told Genie that the boy was a bad little boy for not
stopping and for making us feel afraid... She said, Little bad boy, and Bad gun. ¥
'

After we returned home from our afternoon excursions on 1/5/72, I played the * Another such incident occurred on August 6, 1973.

&
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N
a
 36 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study Rs September 1971—June 1975 37

x
:

When we got home, Genie wanted downstairs with her to put on a

me to come On the way to the hospital, I sang a song about going to the hospital. Genie
fresh sanitary napkin. She said, Come here, Curtiss. That was one of the first Sete kept repeating hospital and at one point sang the word out quite loudly and
times I heard Genie ask rather than grab hold of someone if she wanted some- ae . strongly.
one to come with her. ah
“ae On February 20, 1972, D had attempted to take some of the wax out of
Genie was also learning to use language to lie, or embellish the truth:
4 : Genie’s ear. Genie screamed for the first time. On February 14, 1973:

3/13/74. M reported to me that Genie had come home from school earlier ap Genie had a tantrum and had
scratched her face. M had been talking to her

Genie was not doing so. Ms. C told Genie towork, and that made Geniecry. e i came in, face. At school scratchJace. I asked
Genie immediately said, Scratchand
Genie had made up the part about crying to elicit sympathy from M. ay : her, Why ? Genie imitated my intonation gesture (I had shrugged my shoul-
ae as ders) and said, Why? It was the first time [ heard
her imitate intonation so

a directly.
teeny
pockets, of
.

On March 5, 1975, when I asked her what she had in her she

ThatIe 1 lie. she hadrocks "e her poonetsane

answered, Materia a she was
3F Genie has never screamed since that day in February 1972. She had begun,
edo,
eae occurred’ vin,
A, example 9. 073%henGe an atke d bows herveal
0. ey
# 7 however, to show some pitch control during speech, although she still does not
n January on When seme talked about ner sexua
2, t2,
wet
utilize pitch to mark syntactic or semantic distinctions in sentences’ (see Part I],
her school bus driver, Mr. B.
17

fantasies involving a
Section
.

7.3).
:

G: Mr. B hand. 4 :
Mr. B have hand. ee
Mr. B hand tickle vulva. fs 5.8. GESTURES

Finger tickle vulva. ee

As noted earlier, early days, before
. . og. :

speech difficult for Genie. In the

a
is
Genie vulva.
M: Mr. B drives the bus, his hands are on the wheel. ae speaking, she would body and take a deep breath, then produce an
tense up her

G: Mr. B on the bus, masturbate alone. @ extremely high-pitched and breathy utterance. Choosing to remain silent much
ee .
of the time, Genie often gestured instead of speaking. She invented her own
a gestures and over time expanded her gesture vocabulary. Usually she simply
5.7. SOUND PRODUCTION 4 produced a single gesture, such as “angry” or excited, but as she began speak-
Be ing in longer strings, she began using gestures in a new way:

bili See tide

abilities, didnt
started one eak, heremained EtNery ime
one sob when she cried, She COWdN sing, whistle,
m
her ‘t cal
OF imitate
Q
Be
2/12/73. Genie had been riding in the grocery
the front section of the cart. She
cart like small children do, in

kept saying to me, push cart, go ride cart Mama,

environmental NOISEs.Moreover, she screamed, and was unable to control
never
a and give ride cart (pointing to herself, thus indicating herself as the indirect
pitch during speech. undoubtedly stemmed from her having
These difficulties
learned to suppress phonation as a result of having been beaten for making
e
a
object—elaborating her string by gesture rather than word).

noise. There have been several developments in this area. On November 10, z On March 12, 1972 Genie requested a record which she called “Lady Song”
1971, the following took place: be played for her by saying, Listen lady song. “Listen” was not spoken; it
% to

* was gestured by pointing her hand to her ear. This is the first utterance I wit-
I played nursery songs on the piano and sang them. I attempted to get Genie to ¥ nessed that combined a gesture and words in this way.
sing along withme, and Genie actually changedpitch and produced what could - February, 1974, making use of Genie’s natural feel for gesture, as a means
In
be
considered singing tones. She also clapped, danced, and stamped her feet 2 of expressing herself in a modality better suited to her than speech, Genie was

.
to the music upon request. x
a ?
Genienow uses fairly normal active—declarative intonation, but still does not systematically
On November 17, 1971: * mark yes/no questions by intonation in her speech.

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 38 Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study September 1971—June 1975 39

. introduced to sign language. She was taught a system somewhere between. Sometimes the sessions were fun and one could tell that the words in written
Ameslan (American Sign Language) and Siglish (Signed English) and began... form really had meaning for her, as evidenced on December 1, 1972 when:

combining speech and sign, mostly in the fashion of speaking sentences and -—{-
signing whateverwords in the sentence she had learned the sign for. From that We worked equational sentences, using the names of people Genie knew
on

point on Genie has used signs as she speaks, but she has also continued to use well plus adjectives that were part of her own spontaneous speech and which
gestures of her own invention. i i carried a lot of affect for her. We made sentences like: Curtiss is naughty, Genie
ze : is silly. We acted out the sentences as well as reading and constructing them.
oe “Naughty” and “silly” both have gestures associated with them, so the exercise
5.9. WORKING WITH GENIE ¢ became a dramatic game. Genie not only made every sentence correctly, she
ee went wild gesturing and carrying on a game of her own, even running from one
room to the next that she could gesture at D when he was involved in a
Working with Genie has beenalittle bit of everything—interesting, trying,
so
~ {..

funny, unpredictable, rewarding, unpleasant, fun, problematic, and challenging. 4 .

Sentence.
Basically my work with her has fallen into three categories: (1) language testing, =
work sessions were discouraging.Genie (andstill
. . .
. .

Sometimes, however, was

(2) neurolinguistic and other cognitive and perceptual testing, and (3) work with iG can be) completely uncooperative, very restless, and impossible to work with.
the written word. a
Testing her was extremely problematic
often Especially
and difficult. inthe
When
Genie
When Genie
motivated,
was
had great mn and neces
not, work Sessions
we
King together
x austingly uniruitlul. Enere
hae
was Were
first year of my work with her, getting Genie to attend to the test and respond ina &
some develop ments not moh col vith as
which
meaningful way was difficult. As time passed, however, both of us became more 2 been
Genie’s psychological growth,
contingent are

her ability to
as on

successful at dealing with one another and J learned better how to work around ag on
swite i Oho f wed
as in

her moods, to motivate her, and to get her to perform. At the time of writing, Bcd
The first
attempts get her to pretend she
to
Curtiss . he i was an ue

Genie is still unpredictable, and there are still times when my attempts to test her # totally. She would either not respond atall, after while, play both Sto or a ro

fail. But to a great degree I can now plan what J will accomplish on a given day, a vethe, roth s on At ease tiedLas unnbleto get herte i,
and be reasonably that what I plan will be done.
q
Fe ,

the written word followed

sure

August 27, 1973, after almost 2 years of trying, Genie surprised and
; ;

On me

;
Work with a much less smooth or direct course

but this work was very interesting. (See Part II, Section 6.9 for a description of
readily switched roles:
this method.) Often Genie cooperated and worked hard. Every now and then, 4 We working
.

prepositions. After our session, I tried to get Genie to

. .

Genie added her own touch to the sessions: 2 were on

2 switch roles with me and tell me what to do. (We had been working with colored
boxes which I instructed her to juxtapose in various prepositional relationships.)
&
11/17/71. After each sentence that Genie made, I had her read it to me. Prior I asked her to take turns with me—TI would tell her what to do, then she would
a
to today, she just looked at the words and read them—very slowly. When I read a tell me what to do, etc. Genie astonished me by joining in the “game” without
the sentences to her, J always put my index finger directly under the word. On a hesitation.
this day Genie read each sentence “Curtiss-style,” imitating my pointing method. &
She initiated this on her own, obviously imitating me, thinking this the correct z G: Put orange in the green.
C: Put the yellow box next the white box.
way to read. s to

& G: Put blue box in the white box.

In these sessions she showed the ability to construct her own sentences.
# C i nase bom th‘the yellow box.
= C: Put the orange box behind the white box.
12/16/71. We practiced making negative sentences like, Spot is a dog,Genie = G: Put green box in the blue box.
is nota dog,Genie is pretty, Curtiss is not angry, and so forth. At one point I 5 C: Put the yellow box in front of the orange box.
asked Genie to make the sentence, Curtiss is not a dog. Genie ignored me and S G: Put blue box in the white box.
made a sentence she wanted to make: Curtiss is naughty. z C: Put the green box over the orange box.

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4d Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study

:
rings home. I was overjoyed. This is the first time Genie has ever given me

anything or shared anything with me. af |

2/26/73. Today Genie revealed an adolescent crush on Mr. B, her school bus x : Part TT
driver. When I mentioned his name to her, she blushed and held her hands i
over her face. She also talks about him
incessantly, mentioning his name over .
1g
and Today I asked her, Who is Mr. B? Genie answered Mr. B. She was
over. at .

overcome—blushing, she was unable to verbalize. a :

2/19/75. Genie has long way in controlling her behavior and dealing
come a a :
with her feelings. Not
long ago, many things would have touched off a
so
a
tantrum that now can be dealt with through reasoning and verbalization.
s
Nonetheless, in all this time, when Genie is actually having a tantrum, I have
never been able to reach her through words to
help bring her out of her distress.
a
fs LINGUISTI C DEVELOPMENT
She has never been able to look me directly in the face or focus directly on ba :

something I was saying to her during a tantrum. Today was different. “48
Snacktime had gone smoothly; Genie did not seem particularly agitated -
or upset. Yet as soon as we sat down to work, a tantrum began to brew. After
ug
a few minutes, Genie was stamping and rocking and exhibiting a great deal of “ts
agitation and typical tantrum behavior. Normally I would simply have told Re
her it was time to go outside, where she could not destroy anything, and where a
she would have room to flail out and run or whatever. This is what the foster 3
mother had shown me to do whenever Genie had a tantrum.
Today, however, .
ce
[ just sat there and began to talk to her. I still fully expected to have to take her ae
outside, but I was stalling for time, since getting her outside when she’s agitated “ie
is such an ordeal. To my amazement, Genie really began to listen to what I ee
was saying and, to my further amazement, began to
respond to me and actually 2
to look me directly in the face as we talked. She still exhibited tantrum behavior, “a
but our talking about what was upsetting her seemed to calm her down and mm
ease her anger. She paid close attention to what I said, repeated my statements %
after me, reflected on them aloud, and let their import help her deal with her «
feelings. In addition to talking about the situation which had upset her, I told 12
her that when she was unhappy, I felt unhappy for her, and that when she felt t
good, I felt good. I went on and on about my feelings for her, and howIfelt hy
when something upset her terribly and I could see her unhappiness on her *
face, and so forth. After her tantrum had subsided, she came over to me, very ae
close, and said, Love Curtiss. I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to Genie. ¥
ES

My work with Genie continues, and Genie continues to change, becoming a £ _

fuller person, realizing more of her human potential. By the time this work is x
read, she may have developed far beyond what is described here. That is my 7
keep up with her, that she will have the last word.
:

hope—that I will not be able to

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