Talk:Feral child
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[edit] Critical Distinction
I think there needs to be a distinction made between those children who have been confined or abandonned (like Genie and Kaspar Hauser) and those children who have been fostered and raised in the wild by animals. The former show inability to fit into human (or any) society. The latter, whilst they can not fit into human society, function perfectly well in the society of their adoptive animal foster parents. Whilst they may have behaviours in common, to confuse the two is a mark of anthropocentric thinking.
John D. Croft 13:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Russian news article
regarding mosnews.com:newsru.com -- yeah, I know I linked to a russian article; you can find any number of english articles by googling for "andrei raised by dog" vel. sim. Mhi hi hi hiy point was to link to the original article the others are derived from (apart from local newspapers), which it so happens is in russian ;) Dbachmann 15:13, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- That's all fine, but it is an english article on english wikipedia. :-) - Omegatron 16:49, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)
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- fair enough. in case anybody wants the newsru article, it's here: http://newsru.com/russia/03aug2004/dog_mother.html
Is it best for this article's title to stay in the plural? --Ryguasu
- good point.
[edit] Genie - Changes
I've imported the short case-study 'Genie@ from the page of that name, allowing that page to take the text from Jinni. Not only was it intuitively appropriate, but some 30 internal links to Genie virtually all refer to genies, not Feral children. Heenan73 17:40, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
According to AS Psychology textbooks, Genie in fact went to several foster homes including one in which she was abused again. Should this be added to the page? --User:DJCF
[edit] Appropriatness of the case study
I noticed that the case of Genie was briefly referenced in the article "language acquisition", and was thinking maybe it would be more appropriate there, or perhaps elsewhere, as Genie was not in fact raised by animals at all. So it would seem to NOT in fact be a case study for feral children.
Genie still has her own entry at Genie (feral child). That page seems inferior to this one. Ought it to be deleted, or reset to forward here? --User:Ilyusha
- I think the Genie section should be removed from this article. The article is about feral childs in general, but Genie takes almost half of the article, even when it has its own article. Maybe the latter should be improved --as you say it is inferior-- before the section being removed. rbonvall July 7, 2005 22:36 (UTC)
[edit] Critical determinism effect
The most impressive feature of feral children is their non-human behaviour (walking on all fours, eating raw meat, not speaking) and this is found in a number of cases of children found deprived of human contact. The article gives us the impression that that are very few "real cases" known to science, but this is not true. The article´s list of real cases is extremely poor, and most of them are from the seventeenth century, ignoring the much more documented cases of the last two centuries. The only doubt is about wheter the children were raised by animals, but that stands also for Genie (and Kaspar Hauser) and this is not crucial to the definition of feral children, as emphasized by the very article. The most impressive case - and one that we are sure animals are involved - the indian wolf girls, is missing from the article, as well as many other Indian, European and African reports.
I honestly believe that feral children reports are embarassing to nowadays mainstream scientists (linguists and psychologists included) for they challenge a dogmatic trust in biological determinism, and that would explain the mythical character of feral children reports. When the cases are serioully discussed at all, non-human behaviour of those children (mostly their poor linguistic performance) is generally atributed to the "critical period effect", dismissing, again, the complex interactions that human beings and any other organisms must experience to be what they´re supposed to be.
Beto Vianna
Besides that, the list of cases does not mentions which animals where those that raised the people mentioned.
[edit] Classification
After reading a few articles about Genie using the links provided here and at her own article, I am not too sure on something. Is the government keeping her in that home for the mentally retarted without outside human contact, or is her mother still alive and doing that? If her mom is still alive, where can I contact her? If it is the government that is doing this, how can I ask them if I can get her to live in a apartment and have a teaching staff give her time and love, with her getting contact with the outside world? I myslef would like to meet her. --Admiral Roo 19:52, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Examples
"A feral child is an extremely rare phenomenon, and there are only just over a hundred known cases [1], of which - apart from cases of confined children - all but three are disputed." What are the thre cases? - Matthew238 08:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Opening paragraph
I don't particularly agree with the opening paragraph. It seems to imply that feral children have no contact with other humans and are phisically isolated. This is not always the case. Edik of Ukraine and Oxana Malaya are both considered to be feral children although neither of them was physically confined or isolated and both of them had some contact with other people. Is there a way that we could clarify the opening? Suggestions anyone? Mrplastic 07:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
- Oxana Malaya and Edik were physically in contact with humans but they weren't technically human, since they couldn't communicate by language of any kind. Arual
[edit] Songi?
Why does 'Songi' ("The girl of Songi in Champagne") link right back to this page? What does the word Songi mean?
- Not sure why "Songi" links here. And I'm not sure what "Songi" means. But the girl was found in Songy, which is a place in the Champagne region of France. Roaming27 04:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've now changed "Songi" to "Songy", which is the correct spelling. Roaming27 04:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
