"Feral children" have grown up for some significant length of time either with animals, or with very limited or abnormal human contact. Even if they are placed in healthy family settings they often have difficuly with relationships and language skills. I remember studying the case of Genie in college psychology.

On November 4, 1970 a girl was discovered. She had been locked in a room alone for over ten years. She was tied to a potty chair and left to sit alone day after day. At night, she was tied into a sleeping bag which restrained her arms. She was put into an over-sized crib with a cover made of metal screening. Often she was forgotten. On those nights she slept tied to the potty chair.

At first, people could hardly believe that Genie was thirteen years old. While she seemed to understand a few words, the only words she could say were, "stopit" and "nomore." She had a strange bunny-like walk— she held her hands up in front of her like paws and moved in a halting way. She could not chew solid food and could hardly swallow. She spat constantly. She sniffed. She was not toilet-trained and could not focus her eyes beyond 12 feet. She weighed 59 pounds and was 54 inches tall.

I was extremely interested to find that someone had put together an entire site devoted to these children. Also, I was saddened to find that many recent cases exist, even into the new millennium.

If you have a few minutes, this is a worthy site to poke around for a while. There are some fascinating and truly tragic case histories here.