Raised in Confinement
Isabelle (1938) was almost seven years old when she was discovered. She had spent the first years of her life isolated in a dark room with her deaf-mute mother as her only contact. Only seven months later, she had learned a vocabulary of around 1,500 to 2,000 words. She is reported to have acquired normal linguistic abilities.
Anna (1938) was six years old when she was found, having been kept in a dark room for most of her life. She was born in March 1932 in Pennsylvania, United States. She was her mother's second illegitimate child. Her mother had tried to give Anna up for several months but no agency was willing to take the financial burden, as this was during the Great Depression. Anna was kept in a store room at least until she was five and half, out of the way of her disapproving grandfather, who was infuriated by her presence. Her mother also resented her, considering her troublesome. She was tied to a broken chair which was too small for her, and is believed to have also been tied to a cot for long periods of time. She was mostly fed milk and was never bathed, trained, or caressed by anyone. When she was found, she was suffering from malnutrition as well as muscle atrophy. She was immobile, expressionless, and indifferent to everything. She was believed to be deaf as she did not respond to others (later it was found that her deafness was functional rather than physical). She could not talk, walk, feed herself, or do anything that showed signs of cognition. Once she was taken away and placed in a foster home, she showed signs of improvement. At the age of 9, she began to develop speech. She had started to conform to social norms and was able to feed herself, though only using a spoon. Her teachers described her as having a pleasant disposition. Anna died on August 6, 1942, at the age of 10 of hemorrhagic jaundice.
Genie (1970) is the pseudonym given to a feral girl born in 1957 in Los Angeles. Confined to one room without external stimulation of any kind, Genie was strapped to a child's toilet and restrained in a makeshift harness for up to 13 hours per day. It was also theorized that Genie's father would beat her with a wooden plank kept in the room if Genie vocalized at all, and that he'd occasionally growl outside of her door.[ This abuse continued for approximately 13 years and 6 months. Attempts were made to teach Genie language, but results were limited. Genie's living situation was mostly unstable, often moving between hospitals, foster homes, and even an unsuccessful stay with her own mother. As of 2016, Genie is a ward of the state of California.