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(somber music)
- [Narrator] Children are precious to humankind.
We satisfy our innate desire to nurture
and carry on our bloodline through our progeny.
Our children, in turn, rely on us for love and survival.
What happens to a child that's been abandoned
by all who are charged with protecting him
and left to fend for himself in the wild?
Or when a girl grows up in solitary confinement
in her own family's home, never knowing love
or social interaction?
Since the earliest of times, such stories were thought
to be nothing more than myths.
Could there be any truth to the lore of feral children?
The world feral means wild or undomesticated.
It brings to mind the myth of Romulus, the founder of Rome,
and his twin brother Remus, who were raised by a wolf,
or that of Tarzan, who lived among animals in the wild.
For centuries, feral children have posed questions
that go to the very heart of what it is to be human.
- One of the central questions in all of science
that has to do with humans is
are we a product of our genes or are we a product
of our experience, the old nature, nurture issue.
- Feral children tap into this because
they are the natural experiment that we're not
allowed to carry out.
They are the children who go through
extraordinary circumstances which no one
could naturally create.
- But the fascination I think actually originates
in these sort of primal ideas about the difference
between humans and animals.
Part of being a human is being brought up by humans.
If you're not brought up by humans,
are you completely human?
And I think in some of these cases, that's the issue
that we're dealing with.
(girl barking)
- [Narrator] One of the most extraordinary cases ever
has recently come to light in the Ukraine.
Oxana Malaya was born in November 1983.
According to medical records, she was a healthy child.
So how did Oxana become more like a dog
than a human being?
Her parents were alcoholics, and one night,
too drunk to care, they left Oxana outside.
Looking for warmth, the three year old crawled
into the farm kennel and curled up with the mongrel dog
that probably saved her life.
(dog barking)
But while the dog helped her survive,
her time in the kennel also had awful consequences.
(dog barking)
For the next five years,
she would spend her life living as a dog.
(barking)
(speaks foreign language)
- She was more like a little dog than a human child.
First of all, she couldn't speak or she could hardly speak.
And actually the purpose of speaking,
well she didn't think it was necessary to speak at all.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Children can copy the habits of the creatures around them.
If those creatures are human beings,
they become like human beings.
But as you know, she was surrounded by dogs,
so she became more like a dog than a human being.
- [Narrator] But surely the story of Oxana is a rarity.
The product of alcoholic parents in a poor
and depressed part of the world.
Incredibly, it would seem not.
Throughout history, children have been abandoned
by their parents.
Most die quickly, but some, the survivors,
have resorted to extraordinary means to stay alive.
How they have survived and who they become
are questions that have long fascinated scientists.
But understanding these children has been a slow
and difficult process.
- Very, very good clinicians and researchers have,
with the the tools that they had in their day and age,
they've tried to understand what happened.
But because it's such a complex set of phenomenon,
our understanding has been limited,
and it's incrementally from generation to generation
to generation, we've had better tools to better understand
what happens to these children.
- [Narrator] The first scientifically documented case
occurred in 1800 in France.
It would send shockwaves throughout civilized Europe.
(haunting music)
(tranquil music)
The scientific study of feral children began
in the most improbable of circumstances.
On a cloudy afternoon in southwest France,
two hunters were out in the woods looking for deer.
It had been a long day, and they hadn't caught anything.
But their luck was about to change.
For years, scared villagers had talked
of a strange wild child that lurked in the forest.
He had been caught twice before
but had always managed to escape.
This time however, he wouldn't get away.
News of the capture spread fast.
In Paris, one young doctor, Jean Itard,
was especially interested.
The boy was brought to Paris.
Most of the city's medical professionals quickly decided
that the boy, now called Victor, was nothing
more than an idiot.
But something about him captivated Itard.
- The first thing which is truly remarkable about Itard
is his extremely scientific approach
to reporting what he did.
He gives a wonderful wealth of detail about the child,
what the child did when he tried certain things.
So he is very clearly linked in to a tradition
which we're still involved with now.
(clapping)
- [Narrator] The modern scientific study
of feral children had begun.
For Itard, there were two tests of what it meant
to be human, the ability to feel empathy
and to use language.
Victor could do neither, and so was,
in Itard's eyes, scarcely human.
- Non, Victor, non!
(speaks foreign language)
- [Narrator] At first he was wild and hard to control,
but slowly, Dr. Itard and his housekeeper, Madame Guerin,
started making progress.
Itard's belief in love and kindness seemed to be working.
But after his years alone in the woods,
Itard knew that Victor still craved for the wild.
Every day, they would walk together.
And with every day, Victor became less wild.
And eventually, Madame Guerin was able to take over
what were for Victor, some of his happiest times.
He loved nature.
But he also seemed to be showing real feelings
for the people around him.
- I think that Jean Itard understood the importance
of parental love.
And so he put Victor in a situation where he had,
in essence, a substitute mother, Madame Guerin.
And she played the role of mother.
She understood the importance of constant care,
and understood intuitively how important it is
to touch people.
- [Narrator] And in the months that followed,
there was even more progress.
Victor enjoyed helping Madame Guerin
and had learned to lay the table.
But one lunchtime, he was laying the table
as usual when Madame Guerin started crying.
Her husband had recently died.
Incredibly, Victor seemed to understand.
Quietly, he simply removed the place setting.
This was the breakthrough Itard had been waiting for.
Victor seemed to be showing real empathy
and understanding at last.
- By putting away the place that he'd laid,
he was showing that he could empathize with Madame Guerin.
He realized that he'd made a mistake,
and that his mistake had hurt her.
And I think by doing that, he was showing his ability
to put himself in the position of another human being,
something which when he was first brought to Paris,
would have seemed impossible.
- [Narrator] Victor had passed the first of Itard's tests.
Nervous but excited, Itard realized
that it was now or never.
It was time for Victor to learn to talk.
(Itard sighs)
(cheerful classical music)
But before he could talk, Itard wanted to know
that Victor could recognize sounds.
To test this, he blindfolded him and gave him
a drum and a bell.
It was a game Victor loved and understood immediately.
For Itard, this was just the start he had wanted.
Did this mean that Victor would finally
be able to master language?
A drum is one thing, but language
is infinitely more complex.
Before he would be able to talk,
Itard knew that Victor would have to master
his vowel sounds, the building blocks of all language.
(speaks foreign language)
But this time, Victor was at a complete loss.
To him, it was all nothing more than a game.
Itard could see his dreams for Victor
disappearing before his eyes.
And for the first time ever, lost his temper with the boy.
(speaks foreign language)
But it was no good.
Itard realized that Victor just couldn't make sense
of the sounds that other children take for granted.
Without this, how could he ever be expected to talk?
- Itard felt that to be a human being
in the fullest possible sense, you had to be sociable,
you had to be language-using,
had to be measured, orderly, artificial.
And when he realized that Victor was going to be unable
to attain that, I think he loses interest
and really leaves him to his own devices.
For the next 20 years, Victor would live with Madame Guerin,
happy but abandoned by the man who had tried
so hard to save him.
With Victor, Itard had shown that it was possible
to bring a feral child back into society.
But with language, the ultimate test, he had failed.
Despite this, interest in feral children continued unabated.
In 1828, a young boy, Kasper Hauser,
was found lost and alone in Germany,
his background as much of a mystery as Victor's.
And as the century wore on, more reports were appearing
from distant corners of the globe.
From India in particular, came a series of stories
about children living with wolves.
Distant and unproven, to scientists
they seemed little more than myth.
Then in 1930, a properly documented case of two girls
living with a wolf pack came to light.
American scientists were particularly interested.
But before the girls could get to the United States,
both died of fever.
One of the scientists who had been waiting
to see them was primatologist Winthrop Kellogg.
Despite this setback, he was determined to prove
that nurture was the dominant influence
in child development.
- [Narrator] Kellogg knew that the perfect way
to prove his theory was to engineer a feral child,
to get a baby, put them among wolves
and to see what happened.
Clearly this is the one experiment he couldn't do,
this was the forbidden experiment.
So what he decided to do was the next best thing,
which was to reverse that forbidden experiment
and to bring an ape into a human family.
For the next year the chimpanzee Gua,
would spend every day with Kellogg's young son donald.
As Kellogg had predicted,
Gua could learn many human characteristics.
But the experiment had unforeseen consequences.
- Kellogg really thought of this as an experiment
on the chimpanzee.
In actual fact, it became equally an eXperiment on his son,
particularly in the way in which his son was picking up,
or not picking up, language.
- [Narrator] Rather than learning words, Donald
was learning the barks and yelps of a chimpanzee.
Horrified, Kellogg called off the experiment.
Almost by accident, Kellogg had shown the vulnerability
of early childhood, how the smallest changes
in environment can have unforeseen and long-lasting effects.
It was a subject that continued to intrigue scientists.
In the 1960s, American psychologist Harry Harlow
continued where Kellogg had left off.
- Harlow's work was really seminal in this entire field
because he showed the crucial importance
of the care-giving relationship between a mother
and an infant, and how the physical stimulation,
literally the physical contact with the caregiver
has profound impact on healthy development.
- [Narrator] At birth, Harlow took baby monkeys
from their mothers.
They were then given a choice between
a cold wire monkey with milk or a soft warm monkey without.
Amazingly, they chose the more comforting figure every time.
And socially, the effects were devastating.
Raised in isolation without any love or encouragement,
these young monkeys were scared and confused.
Harlow couldn't explain it,
but something about this early isolation
had damaged them for life.
But these were monkeys.
Would the same be true for a human child?
It would be another 20 years before scientists
had a chance to find out.
And when they did, it would be in the busiest,
most urban setting imaginable.
- [Reporter] Officials in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia
have taken custody of a 13-year-old girl
they say was kept in such isolation by her parents
that she never even learned to talk.
The girl still wore diapers and was uttering
infantile noises when a social worker
discovered the case two weeks ago.
But the authorities are hoping she still may
have a normal learning capacity.
- [Narrator] Among the first to see the child
was Temple City detective sergeant Frank Linley.
- I already knew that the child was 13 and a half years old.
And I took one look at her, and she wasn't much bigger
than my daughter Beverly, who had just turned seven
about three months earlier.
And I really had a hard time conceiving
of the idea that the child was the age that she was.
The child obviously had been severely mistreated.
She was still in diapers, couldn't walk,
she had no verbal skills at all at that point.
(haunting music)
The last time I was on this street
was probably 30 years ago.
Yeah, there it is.
Hasn't changed much.
The backyard looks the same.
It's all weeds and dead grass.
Looks the same as it did in 1970.
- [Narrator] The house belonged to Clark Wiley.
A loner, Clark had turned his back
on the world after his mother had been killed
in a hit and run accident.
After the accident, things in the Wiley house
would never be the same again.
- The house was completely dark.
All the blinds were drawn.
And there were no toys, no clothes,
nothing that would ever indicate to you that a child
of any age lived there.
The child's bedroom was back in this corner.
That was the bedroom.
The windows were covered to about three inches from the top,
which were the only natural light that had ever
come in there in all the time the child was in the bedroom.
The entire furnishings of the bedroom consisted
of a cage with a pull-down chicken wire lid and some type
of piece of wire securing it when they closed it down.
There was a potty chair with some kind
of homemade strapping device.
- [Narrator] For years, Genie had spent her nights
locked in bed, her days strapped to a potty chair.
During that time, Clark had ordered his son John
and wife Irene never to talk to her.
In her darkened room, she had led a life
of near total isolation.
Even close neighbors were completely unaware
of her presence.
- We came home from work and the police was here,
and they came to question us.
That's when we found out, you know,
what happened and that they had a little girl.
Nobody knew.
Nobody knew before.
And when we found out what happened and how she was treated,
I mean, everybody was shocked and just unbelievable.
- [Narrator] For their whole marriage, Clark
had imposed his will on Irene.
And blind with cataracts, she had been too scared to resist.
But one day, something broke.
While Clark was out buying groceries,
she seized her chance and fled.
It was the first glimpse the world would have of Clark
and Irene's dark secret.
- I met Clark and Irene at Temple City sheriff's station.
They were both under arrest at the time.
When we interviewed Irene, she would make no mention
of the family whatsoever, particularly the children.
I attempted, along with my partner, to interview Clark.
He refused to talk to us, he wouldn't say a word.
He never even acknowledged that he understood
what we were talking about.
Unable to face the truth, Clark took matters
into his own hands.
- [Reporter] this morning the authorities reported
that 70 year old Clark Wiley shot and killed himself
just before he was to go to court and be arraigned
for child abuse.
After 13 years, Genie was at last free.
And for scientists, she was just the case
they had been waiting for.
For 13 years, Genie had lived a life of complete isolation.
Raised in a city bedroom,
Genie was as much a feral child
as if she had been brought up by wolves.
At 13, she was the size of a six-year-old.
Worst of all, she had never been taught to speak.
The question now, could she ever learn?
Genie's case was so scientifically important
that the government funded a team of scientists
to help an the many questions she posed.
- [James] It's so good to see you.
- [Narrator] Two of the scientists
who would become especially important to Genie
were child psychologist James Kent
and linguist Susan Curtiss.
- It's so wonderful to see you!
- [Narrator] Neither had ever encountered a case
as extreme as Genie's.
- We looked at her as a newborn, in a way,
even though we know she hadn't,
she came with years of memories and experiences,
not all of them wonderful, most of them not, I think.
And so we thought we needed to start to expose her
to what the world was going to be like for her
outside the hospital bed.
- [Narrator] To Genie, everything was a new experience.
- We did what you would do with your own kids
if you were introducing them to the world.
You'd take them out and hold them up and show them,
and sort of judge from how they reacted to whether
this was too much or not enough and you could move on
and do the next thing.
- [Narrator] Genie was making amazing progress.
As the experts looked on, they realized that she might
be the answer to the question that had troubled science
for so long.
- So we seized this wonderful opportunity that she
provided us in as loving a way as we could,
but using it to finally get our chance
to address head-on, specific hypotheses and notions
about human language and the human mind.
- [Narrator] These hypotheses were based on the latest ideas
about how children's brains developed.
According to the theory, young children could only
learn certain things at certain times,
called critical periods.
Language was one of these critical periods.
And according to the theory, Genie, who was now a teenager,
had missed her chance forever.
But incredibly, Genie seemed to be proving the theory wrong.
As this footage shows, Genie was blossoming.
Not only was she delighted by the world around her,
but she was learning the words
for the new things she was seeing.
- She was extremely interested in everything around her.
She wanted to know the word for everything around her.
She wanted to engage people all around her.
She was not mentally deficient.
Her lights were on, and everyone who worked with her,
from teachers to therapists to me, knew that
she was not retarded.
It was clear as day.
And as she began to learn more and more words,
hundreds of words, much more rapidly than I ever imagined,
and stringing them together, I began to think maybe
I would be wrong.
Maybe she will be the one that will prove
that this hypothesis is incorrect.
- [Narrator] But Genie could not escape the effects
of her past so easily.
She was still haunted by her traumatic upbringing
trapped by the memories of the awful fate
she had suffered.
And linguistically, she had stopped making progress.
- She learned tons of words, she has an enormous vocabulary.
But language is not words, language is grammar.
Language is sentences.
How do you make a sentence?
What can be a sentence?
What is a sentence?
How do you automatically know something's a sentence?
So it wasn't because she was cognitively deficient
in other respects, it was because
she was cognitively deficient in this island of human mind,
the mental faculty that we call grammar.
- [Narrator] At the time Genie was found,
brain science was in its infancy.
But today, we have a much clearer picture
of what actually happens in cases of extreme neglect
like Genie's.
- In Genie's brain, the left part of her brain,
her cortex, that has those neural systems responsible
for speech and language, because she never heard any words
and because she was never spoken to very often,
they didn't get stimulated.
And because they weren't stimulated,
they got smaller and less functional and disconnected.
And ultimately, that part of the brain literally
physically changes.
- [Narrator] Today with modern imaging technology,
we can actually see what happens in the brains
of feral children, and the effects are shocking.
Without normal stimulation,
their brains are smaller and malformed.
And the earlier this neglect begins and the longer
it carries on, the worse the damage will be.
Starved of stimulation, Genie's brain had simply not
developed the capacity for language.
And now that she was a teenager,
she would never be able to learn.
Despite this, Genie continued to be a close part
of everyone's life.
But there was more trouble ahead.
- Children have to belong to somebody when the grow up,
and she was still a child, and she needed a family
to belong to.
So, that's what we would have liked,
a family that she could belong to.
And that's not what happened, unfortunately.
What did happen is about the worst outcome,
I think, we would have envisioned.
- [Narrator] On her 18th birthday, Genie moved back
with her mother Irene into the house
in which she had been so terribly abused.
But after only a few weeks,
it was clear that Irene couldn't cope.
From here, Genie was moved into state care
with terrible consequences.
- I was a student, and people wouldn't listen to me.
People who needed to intervene did not listen to me.
And so I spent lots and lots of time on the phone
pleading with people to intervene and save this person,
who had, had the worst experience of deprivation
and isolation in all recorded medical history.
Genie moved from home to home,
sometimes with the very people who served as her therapists.
This potential conflict of interests
raised tensions among the many people involved in her life,
and a tug of war erupted over the child.
As Genie's condition deteriorated,
Irene decided that Susan Curtiss and the other academics
had become too close to Genie.
A lawsuit followed.
- I went from being asked to be her guardian
to one week later, being prevented from seeing her
or phoning her.
And ever since then, I've been prevented
from having any contact at all.
So, although I have lots of, you know,
that I'm still a scientist, I'm still interested
in knowing things about her language now
and all kinds of interesting things I would like
to pursue academically.
Primarily, I would just like to see her.
- [Narrator] Now a ward of the court,
Genie lives in an adult care home somewhere in Los Angeles,
prevented from seeing the people who once meant
so much to her.
But children like Genie continue
to be discovered, even today.
- We actually are seeing an increase in the number
of severely neglected children who are in physically
and socially isolated environments
and have feral child-like properties.
(growling)
(haunting music)
- [Narrator] In the Ukraine, we uncovered
an incredible story.
Mirny is a depressed and rundown town miles from anywhere.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Mirny was a thriving navy town.
But now, half the flats are empty and stray dogs
roam the streets.
But in 1999, social workers found a situation shocking
even by the standards of Mirny.
On the third floor of this block,
a four-year-old boy called Edik was found
in a deserted flat.
His alcoholic mother was nowhere to be seen.
As the authorities started asking questions,
a horrifying picture began to emerge.
While Edik's younger sister Nadia had been cared
for by neighbors, Edik had been forced to look elsewhere
for love and affection.
Without a mother to care for him, Edik had turned
to the local stray dogs for warmth and protection.
Worse, he started to behave more like a dog
than a human being.
(barking)
(speaking in a foreign language)
- His behavior was exactly like a dog's behavior should be.
He was taking the food only with his hands,
and he was scratching the younger kids and biting them.
(dog growling) (children shouting)
- [Narrator] Two years later, Edik is six
and lives in foster home in the nearest city.
He has made remarkable progress but still has many problems.
His behavior has improved and he is better
with the other children.
But linguistically, he is slow.
Doctors have told us that, while Edik is six,
his language is that of a three-year-old.
It seemed that Edik was suffering from many
of the same language problems that had affected Victor
and Genie so badly.
The crucial question, had he been found in time,
or would he, like them, never recover?
To try and gain an accurate picture of Edik's condition,
we took a leading language expert, Professor James Law,
to the Ukraine to evaluate Edik.
- There seem to be a lot of similarities between Edik
and other feral children.
One of the interesting things is he's been identified
rather younger than some of the more extreme cases.
So, they had a much longer extended period of neglect,
whereas his neglect has been pretty acute,
but for a finite period of time.
And then he's come to this warm
and very supportive foster family,
and that has to be a good thing.
- [Narrator] To get a better picture,
James spoke with Edik's foster mother.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- At the beginning, he was a wild child.
He didn't know anything.
He didn't even know what a plate or a spoon was,
or how he should use them.
And it took months to make him eat normally
and to get him to wear clothes and behave normally.
- The picture that his foster mother paints is that
in the last six months or so, there seems to be a bit
of a breakthrough in some way.
And it's not so much to do with his language,
although that has been improving.
It's to do with his ability to relate to other people
and to, if you like, empathize.
- [Narrator] With Edik's background clear in his mind,
James could begin to make a more formal assessment
of Edik's strengths and weaknesses.
As the session progressed, it was clear that Edik
was reveling in the attention.
But just how much of an impact had two years of neglect
had on his language?
It was time for James to find out.
- Now.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Let's have a look.
Listen, listen, listen,
listen, listen, listen, (shushing)
(speaking in a foreign language)
Okay, just quickly, point to the elephant first.
Listen very carefully.
Point to the elephant first, and then point to the giraffe.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Good boy.
Well done.
Point to the cat and then to the bird.
(speaks foreign language)
Okay.
- [Edik] Okay, okay.
(James laughs)
- [Narrator] Linguistically, Edik had made good progress
since moving from the awful conditions in the town
in which he was found.
But the details of his past were still unclear.
To get a better picture, James needed to take Edik back
to Mirny, the town where he had been so badly treated
by humans that dogs had become his most faithful companions.
As he walked round the village, Edik could remember
little of the details of what had happened to him.
But he could remember some of the places
behind the flats where he had run and slept
with the dogs that had become his family.
As he continued, Edik's confidence and memory
seemed to be improving.
He wanted to show James the flat where he had lived
with the dogs.
But as we reemerged at the front of the block,
we were greeted by a local delegation.
Somehow the mayor and police had been alerted
to our presence.
(speaking foreign language)
They claimed that the story about Edik was a lie
and demanded we stop filming.
- [Translator] She knows this woman.
She's saying that everything that you were told
about this family's totally wrong,
and that's why you shouldn't film anything here.
- [Narrator] It was clear that something had happened here.
But with the mayor and the police's vigorous denials,
it was far from certain exactly what.
However, as we were leaving the town,
James was approached by a local woman who clearly
recognized both Edik and Nadia.
Despite the police's intervention, she was determined
to tell him what she had seen when the children lived
in the town.
(speaks foreign language)
- [Translator] Absolutely awful conditions.
She never cleaned her flat.
There was fish on the floor, and the dogs living there,
and the conditions were absolutely awful.
- We have heard stories that the children used to
play a lot with the dogs, with animals, around the flats.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- She's saying that yes, the children were good friends
of the local dogs, and how the stray dogs used
to come and live in their flat.
There were always not less than three dogs in their flat,
and Edik was living with them.
- [Narrator] But could a young child really live with dogs?
And if they could,
how would this incredible relationship work?
Animal expert Steve Fryer has worked with dogs
for over 20 years, and studied
their very special bond with man.
- The relationship between domesticated dogs and humans
is really very special, and it's almost a primeval urge.
And the feelings that we get about dogs,
and I'm sure they have about us because they've been
around us for so many thousands of years,
and it's been passed on through generation after generation.
- [Narrator] But how would he explain Edik's
incredible story?
I believe food was the issue.
And the dogs were coming into the warmth and security
of the apartment, and getting regular food,
or irregular food.
So, they must have seen this young child
as a provider for the pack.
And perhaps, it pushed his status up much higher
than if he had just been a three-year-old child
running around with them.
Dogs are very quick to learn to seize on an opportunity.
So, if there's a free food source, then it would
be a very big bonus in their thinking capacity
towards this child.
- [Narrator] Edik, it seems, was lucky.
By offering the dogs food and shelter,
he in return received the warmth and companionship
that probably saved his life.
But after only two years with the dogs,
he had suffered serious consequences.
But what of Oxana?
She is now 19, but spent almost six years
living in a kennel.
She was found at eight, almost the same age as Victor.
Would she ever be able to talk?
Or would she, like Victor and Genie before her,
be condemned to a life of silence?
Oxana is now 19, and lives miles from the nearest town
in a home for the mentally ill.
When she was discovered at eight, she couldn't even talk.
According to brain theory, Oxana would have only three
or four years to learn language
before she lost the chance forever.
In this short time, Oxana made it.
She can now talk in simple sentences,
but she is haunted by the memories of her terrible past.
Even now, as this footage shows,
she can still revert to her old behavior.
(barking)
(howling)
(speaking in a foreign language)
- My mum wanted to have a boy, and she had a girl instead.
And so she just threw me out, and put me into the kennels.
When I was small, the dogs were breastfeeding me.
And later, they brought me, like when I was bigger,
they brought me what people gave them,
and they shared it with me.
I wasn't scared of them at all, it was my home.
- [Narrator] So what does the future hold for Oxana?
(speaks foreign language)
- The only thing we can do is to try and correct her
behavior so she gets used to living in a human society.
The best way to do it is to try and find a proper occupation
for her, and it will focus her mind from dogs and animals
to some sort of useful occupation.
But she will never be considered a normal person.
- [Narrator] Found at eight, Oxana
has made amazing progress.
But like Victor and Genie before her, it seems
that her development has come some way
but will now go no further.
But what about Edik?
What does his future hold?
- The earlier children are identified, then something
can be done about it, even if it's just
stabilizing their environment,
the better it is for those children.
My sense is that the fact that he was identified
when he was four, is going to stand him in good stead.
- [Narrator] Linguistically, Edik's future
looks encouraging.
- What you're seeing in Edik is a really substantial number
of words that he's now acquired
over a relatively short period of time.
We're also seeing his grammar developing.
And it seems to be developing more slowly,
but of course, it always does develop more slowly,
and then it'll really take off.
I'm assuming that in the next year or so,
that we would have what they called a grammar burst,
where you get a massive number of new structures.
And it looks to me as if Edik is doing that on his own
without instruction.
And one would take that to be a very positive sign.
- [Narrator] But socially, he is likely
to find things more difficult.
- In Edik's case, we probably have an example of a child
who orientates towards the dogs because being with them
was actually to his advantage.
I think it's impossible to underestimate
the impact that this could have in the long-term.
If we observe him in the orphanage, you see,
he attaches to almost anybody indiscriminately.
And what is likely to happen is that he's going
to be vulnerable socially, and I think his
personal development is what I would be
most concerned about.
- [Narrator] Edik is likely to suffer the consequences
of his early experiences for many years to come.
But it would be wrong to see feral children
simply as hopeless.
- We should look at these children not with pity
but with awe.
I mean, it's fascinating that you could go through
something like that and that you would still be willing,
after what human beings have done to you,
that you'd still be willing to put your hand out
and touch a new person.
Faced with almost unimaginable situations,
feral children have come up with the best strategies
they could to survive.
And for the last 200 years, science has tried
to understand the mysteries they pose.
With Victor, Itard made the first steps,
a process that continued with Susan Curtiss's
work with Genie, and goes on right up to today
with evaluations of children like Oxana and Edik.
- We are continuing to learn more and more about how
to help these children, and more and more about
how these neglectful experiences influence their brain.
But we're just on the very, very, very cusp
of being able to be helpful.
Because to date, we haven't done a very good job of that.
We just haven't understood the brain or brain development
in ways that would allow us to be as good as we can be.
And I think that that's changing.
- [Narrator] And as we look to the future,
one thing is certain:
the story of feral children is far from over.
- I think there always will be stories like this.
Really, as long as adults are abandoning children,
leaving them to their own devices,
as long as really adult cruelty goes on,
then there will be feral children.