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(詳細はGenie, the primary victim in one of the most severe cases of abuse, neglect and social isolation on record in medical literature, came to light in early November 1970, authorities arranged for her admission to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where doctors determined that at the age of 13 years and 7 months she had not acquired a first language.〔 Hospital staff then began teaching Genie to speak General American English, and she gradually began to learn language. Their efforts soon caught the attention of linguists, who saw her as an important way to gain further insight into acquisition of language skills and linguistic development. Starting in late May 1971, UCLA professor Victoria Fromkin headed a team of linguists who began a detailed study of Genie's progress with learning language. One of Fromkin's graduate students, Susan Curtiss, became especially involved in testing various aspects of Genie's linguistic development. Linguists' observations of Genie began that month, and in October of that year they began actively testing what principles of language she had acquired and was acquiring. Their studies enabled them to publish several academic works examining theories and hypotheses regarding the proposed critical period during which humans learn to understand and use language.〔〔 On broader levels Genie followed some of the normal patterns of young children acquiring a first language, but researchers noted many marked differences with her linguistic development. The size of her vocabulary and the speed with which she expanded it consistently outstripped all anticipations, and many of the earliest words she learned and used were very different from typical first-language learners and strongly indicated that she possessed highly developed cognitive abilities. However, she had far more difficulty with acquiring and utilizing grammar. She clearly mastered some basic aspects of it, and understood significantly more than she used in her own speech, but her rate of acquisition was very slow and resulted in her vocabulary being much more advanced and sophisticated than most people in equivalent phases of grammar acquisition. Researchers attributed some of her abnormal expressive language to physical difficulties she faced with speech production, and worked very hard to improve her ability to speak. Within months of being discovered Genie developed exceptional nonverbal communication skills and invented several methods of nonverbal communication to compensate for her lack of language, so the scientists eventually decided to teach her a form of sign language.〔 By the time the scientists finished working with Genie, she had not fully mastered English grammar and her rate of acquisition had significantly slowed down. Linguists ultimately concluded that because Genie had not learned a first language before the critical period had ended, she was unable to fully acquire a language. Furthermore, despite the clear improvements in her conversational competence it remained very low. While she had expanded her use of language to serve a wider range of functions, she had an unusually difficult time utilizing it during social interactions. Tests on Genie's brain found she was acquiring language in the right hemisphere of her brain, which was highly unusual for a right-handed person, giving rise to many new hypotheses and refining existing hypotheses on cerebral lateralization and its effect on linguistic development.〔〔 Testing of Genie's language occurred until the end of 1977, but in mid-1975, when she was 18 years old, her mother placed her in an institution which subjected her to extreme physical and emotional abuse. Due to her treatment in this location, she became afraid to speak and rapidly began losing her newly acquired language skills.〔 After removal from this location in April 1977 she moved through several more placements, some of which were highly abusive, causing further regression in her development.〔 In early January 1978, Genie's mother suddenly decided to prevent any further testing and scientific observations of Genie. There has been no direct scientific analysis of Genie since the end of 1977, and the very few updates on her ability to communicate are all personal observations or secondary accounts of them. Nonetheless, linguists have continued analyzing Genie's language long after this time. Since the case study on Genie ended, there has been some controversy and debate among linguists about how much grammar she had acquired and for how long she had been learning new aspects of language.〔 ==Background== Genie was the last, and second surviving, of four children of parents living in Arcadia, California. She was born in 1957 without any noted complications at a normal, healthy weight and size. Around the time of her birth, her father began to isolate himself and his family from other people. Genie had a congenital hip dislocation, discovered at the age of 3 months, that caused her to be late to walk, and based on this her father decided that she was severely mentally retarded and therefore did not like Genie. He tried not to talk to or pay attention to her and discouraged his wife and son, who was around five years older than Genie, from doing so. Doctors and scientists who worked with Genie were uncertain about most of Genie's life from birth to 20 months, but concluded that she most likely suffered from both malnutrition and some degree of neglect.〔 Her mother said that as a baby Genie was not very cuddly and did not babble very much. At times she claimed that at an undetermined point Genie began to say some unspecified individual words, but on other occasions said that Genie had never produced speech of any kind, preventing linguists from making any definitive determinations. Some, although not all, of the people who studied Genie thought it possible that she may have learned some early language before losing it due to her subsequent isolation.〔 During the first two years of Genie's life she began to fall behind in her physical development, and at the age of 14 months old she came down with a fever. The pediatrician who examined her said that, although her illness prevented him from making a definitive diagnosis, there was a possibility that she could be mentally retarded and have the brain dysfunction kernicterus. Her father took this opinion to mean she was severely retarded. When Genie was 20 months old, after a pickup truck struck and killed her paternal grandmother, Genie's father decided to increase the family's isolation as much as possible. Because he thought Genie was severely retarded he believed she required additional isolation, so from that time until Genie reached the age of 13 years, 7 months, he imprisoned Genie in one room of their house. Genie spent almost all of her childhood locked alone in a bedroom with almost no environmental stimuli, strapped to a child's toilet or bound inside a crib with her arms and legs completely immobilized.〔 Her father refused to speak to or around Genie, and if she made any kind of sound or showed any emotion he would beat her or force her brother to do so. To further discourage her from making any outward expression her father would bare his teeth and bark and growl at her like a wild dog, teaching her not to vocalize or make noise and to give as little outward expression as possible. On occasions when she was either hungry or seeking some kind of attention she made environmental noises, but otherwise maintained silence at all times. Genie's father had an extremely low tolerance for any kind of noise, to the point of refusing to have a working television or radio in the house. Apart from one slightly open window Genie did not have any access to auditory stimuli outside the house, and the window was set well away from the street and other houses. He never allowed other people to come to the house, forbade any interaction between Genie and her mother, and forced his son to assist with carrying out his abuse while otherwise preventing him from being in Genie's presence.〔 He did not permit them to speak, and especially not to or around Genie, so any conversations they had were out of Genie's earshot and did not give her the opportunity to hear any meaningful amount of language.〔 At an unspecified point Genie's father promised his wife that he would allow her to seek treatment for Genie if she lived to the age of 12, but he reneged when she reached 12 and her mother took no action for another year. Sometime during October 1970, Genie's mother left her husband and took Genie with her. A few weeks later, on November 4, a social worker observed Genie's behavior and total silence. The social worker and her supervisor brought Genie to the attention of child welfare authorities and the police, who arrested Genie's parents, and a court order was immediately issued for Genie, who was 13 years and 7 months old, to be admitted to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The police officer who arrested Genie's parents said that he and other authorities who interacted with Genie had specifically noted that she did not speak at all.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Linguistic development of Genie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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