- Genie Wiley was one of the of the most challenging cases for scientists and linguists.

She was severely abused by her father for 13 years and strapped to a potty chair since
20 months old, oftentimes Genie was also strapped to a sleeping bag and stuffed in a
crib.
- Imitation: family members never spoke to her, she has no one to imitate words or sounds
from except for the sounds of barking or growling
- Reinforcement (punishment): Whenever Genie would make a sound, her father would
beat her up
- LASS: Genie had no active caretakers in her life that help her learn language and
conversations
- LAD: Even though she had been restricted from conversations from a very early age,
after being rescued and put under the care of scientists and linguists, Genie was still
able to learn new phrases, despite her stop progressing after a period of time.
- Regulatory function: She was knew the phrases “no more” and “stop it” due to the
physical abuse received from her father

Genie Wiley was considered to be one of the most challenging cases for scientists and linguists.
For 13 years, Genie was kept in solitary confinement with zero human interaction. Her family
members were prohibited to converse with her by her biological father. The only times her father
would interact with her is when he would bark and growl at her. When rescued by scientists,
Genie was abnormally petite and had no ability to talk nor walk.

For all her life, Genie was kept in solitary confinement. None of her family members were
allowed to speak to her, hence she had no one to imitate words or sounds to learn language
from an early age. The only sounds she was exposed to was the sound of barking and growling
from her father. According to American psychologist B. F. Skinner’s theory called Imitation and
Reinforcement, he hypothesized that children acquire language by conditioning. Conditioning is
a proccess where children imitate sounds from their surroundings (imitation) and receive
rewards in return (reinforcement). For instance, a mother constantly speaks to her baby. In the
baby’s early age, it would probably only imittate segments of the words and create random
sounds. On later stages, the baby will slowly be able to imitate words or even phrases, which
will later develop into full sentences as the baby grows up to a child. The mother would
occassionally give her child candy or praises whenever they succeed in forming a full sentence.
Now, considering that Genie’s only access to sounds was sounds of barking and growling, that
is all she could imitate. This results in Genie growing up to be a feral child whose only response
to anything is barking or growling. Even so, if Genie were to omit the slightest of sounds, her
father would beat her. This relates with Skinner’s theory on Imitation and Reinforcement, where
Genie imitates sounds and gets something in return. In this case, it was punishment. If children
were to get rewards, it would further encourage them to acquire more skills in language.
However, if they receive punishment, it would indirectly restrict them. Another example would be
a child imitating a video they saw on the internet, where the people in the video were using
slurs. The mother would give the child a form of punishment by restricting their time online or
confiscating their electronic device completely. This would discourage the child from using the
slur again as they would not want to bear the consequence again. This is how Genie learned to
not make many sounds as well. For everytime she make sounds, her father would punish her by
physically abusing her. This causes Genie to develop trauma as her mind will start to develop
the mindset to “not make a sound” otherwise “you will be in pain”.

Despite unable to speak, Genie as a human being would still be able to feel pain. This triggered
a portion in her brain for a response. According to Halliday, there are 7 functions of child
language – regulatory function is one of them. Regulatory function means that language is used
as means to influence others’ behavior. This was used by Genie when her father abused her by
responding with words such as “stop it” or “no more”, which was the only words she knew. Her
father, Clark Wiley, was a tyrant. He was abusive even before Genie was born. It was mentioned
that Genie’s older brother also received maltreatments from this man, though it was less severe
compared to Genie’s. It could be assumed that Genie learnt those words by overhearing her
brother’s pleas when he was experiencing physical violence from Clark.

Her father, who was supposed to be one of her caretakers, was only active in comitting maltreat
against Genie while her mother and older brother, they were prohibited from speaking to her by
the abuser. None of her alleged caretakers were active in her life, hence she had no one to aid
her in learning languages. Jerome Bruner, a linguist, put forward a theory called Language
Acquisition Support System (LASS) where he theorized that it is important for children to have
parents and caretakers interact regularly with them at early ages of 2-5 years old in order for
them to be able to acquire language. Influenced by their caretakers, children will develop
understanding of lexis and use it to respond back. This understanding will expand as they grow
older and are exposed to more people with various range of lexical knowledge, hence acquiring
language skills. As for Genie’s case, she was isolated from the outside world and only knew her
family members whom never interacted with her unless it was to bark or growl. This prohibits
Genie from being able to develop an understanding of lexis and acquiring language skills. As a
result, Genie grew to be a child who is unable to conjure words.

Genie was able to be free from her atrocious household after a social worker found her. She
was then taken in by scientists who later on formed a team with several linguists and studied
her. Regardless of Genie’s past living conditions, Genie was still able to learn a few new
phrases and words, such as her own name, under the refuge of the scientists. This has a
correlation with Noam Chomsky’s theory where children are born with innate language
competence in their brain. This theory is called the Language Acquisition Device theory (LAD).
Although deprived of language knowledge, her innate nature could not be easily changed. This
allowed her to learn new lexis. Unfortunately, however, her trauma restricted her from making
progress after a certain period of time.

Genie Wiley was an interesting case for linguists and scientists as she has proven and
invalidate the language theories linguists and psychologists has come up at the same time. Yes,
she was able to learn new words and make progress, yet she stopped making new ones in the
process. Today, Genie Wiley, 65 years old, resides in a foster care house in southern California
and is characterized to be depressed and silent. From this alone, it could be concluded Genie
was still not able to normally converse as a normal 65 year old would due to her past.