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Genie Wiley was the name given to a thirteen-year-old girl who had been a victim of severe abuse, neglect, and isolation since her birth. Her father, Clark Wiley, hated children and quickly tired of hearing baby Genie’s cries. As a result, at an early age, he threw her in the basement with nothing but a wire cage and a potty chair with a homemade strapping device. He believed Genie was mentally handicapped, and he used that excuse to keep Genie from both her family and from the outside world. He kept Genie either strapped to her potty chair or in a crib with her arms and legs immobilized. This left Genie severely malnourished. Her isolation made it impossible for her to acquire language during her childhood.1 Genie’s mother, Irene Wiley, who was almost blind from cataracts, and her older brother John Wiley, also suffered from the father’s abuse and lived in fear of him for years. But one day, Irene grew the courage to run off and tell a social worker about her husband’s dark secret. When the social worker found Genie, she was still wearing diapers and was unable to speak. Unable to face the truth of the damage he inflicted upon his family, Clark shot and killed himself. After thirteen years and seven months of unimaginable torture at the hands of her father, Genie was finally given the chance to learn how to live as an average human being. 2

The first publicly released picture of Genie, taken in 1970, just after authorities took control of her care at the age of thirteen | Courtesy of Wikipedia

In the first years after Genie’s liberation, psychologists, linguists, and other scientists became interested in Genie, seeing in her near-total isolation a unique chance to study many aspects of human development. The case was so scientifically important that the government funded a team of scientists to help answer the many questions that her conditions posed. James Kent, a child psychologist, and Susan Curtiss, a linguist, were the two scientists who became extremely close to Genie. Neither one of them had ever encountered a case as extreme as Genie’s. The scientists took advantage of the unheard of opportunity that Genie’s unique conditions provided them. Yet they also used Genie to address specific questions about “critical period theory” and the human mind. While many scientists researched Genie’s conditions, Susan Curtiss and James Kent had Genie stay with them in their own homes.3

The “critical period” theory states that there is a certain window of time when an adolescent can learn a language. The first few years of life is crucial for individuals to acquire their first language.4 If the learning of language occurs after this period of time, then the individual will never acquire the full command of a language. The evidence that supported the “critical period” theory was slim, which is why Genie was so important for proving or disproving the theory. According to the theory, Genie, who was now a teenager, had missed her time to learn words and grammatically put them into sentences. But the scientists wanted to try and see what repetitive teaching could accomplish. Susan Curtiss spent hours per week working with Genie to help her learn how to express herself in language.5

The Salk Institute, where researchers analyzed the data from the first of several brain exams on Genie | Courtesy of Wikipedia

Susan Curtiss, a scientist from UCLA, worked with Genie in an attempt to improve her language skills. Genie seemed to have little to no control over any speech organs, and she showed defects in the muscles she used for chewing and swallowing. Susan Curtiss thought that if Genie was able to understand the English language spoken to her, then there was a good chance this would reflect some linguistic knowledge of the language, even though physical and psychological impediments prevented her from using this knowledge to produce speech. Unfortunately, Genie was unable to understand and respond to any form of commands, which meant that a controlled comprehension test would have to wait. Even though Genie scored at the level of a 1-year-old at her initial assessment, she quickly began adding new words to her vocabulary. Genie started by learning single words like “dog” and “run,” and then she began putting two words together, like “a dog house,” which is something young children can do.6 Curtiss began to feel that Genie would be fully capable of acquiring language. She had found that while Genie could use words, she could not produce grammar or even put together sentences. She could not arrange these words in a meaningful way. It started looking as though the “critical period” theory of language development might indeed be correct.7

James Kent, a child psychologist, stated that his first impression of Genie was incredibly surprising. Hers was the worst case of child abuse he had ever encountered, and he became extremely pessimistic about Genie’s prognosis. The restraints that Genie’s father used caused Genie’s wrists to develop extreme bruising, and her bones were unable to grow while she had been forced to sleep inside a crib. Kent found it extremely difficult to test Genie’s mental age, but the two times he did showed that Genie had the same mental ability as a thirteen-month old child.8 Despite tests confirming that she had normal vision in both eyes, she could not focus them on anything more than ten feet away. This was caused by being locked up inside a small room for thirteen years.9

Genie working with Marilyn Rigler at her home in Country Club Park, Los Angeles in June 1971 | Courtesy of Wikipedia

Jay Shurly, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Oklahoma and a specialist in social isolation, took interest in Genie’s case. He started visiting Genie three days a week to conduct a sleep study to see if Genie was autistic, mentally challenged, or if she had sustained any bring damage during the time she was isolated. Shurly’s study concluded that Genie Wiley was not autistic but had high levels of emotional disturbance. Jay Shurly’s sleep study also showed a significantly reduced amount of REM sleep and a large number of sleep spindles. Shurly soon concluded that, based on the unusual amount of sleep spindles, Genie had been mentally retarded since birth. Some of the other scientists were not 100% sure if this information was true due to the substantial progress Genie was making in expressing herself. Much later, for example, Susan Curtiss argued that, even though Genie obviously had serious emotional issues, she could not have been retarded. She pointed out that Genie made a year’s developmental progress for every calendar year after her rescue, which would not be expected if her condition was congenital, and that some aspects of language that Genie acquired were uncharacteristic of mentally retarded individuals.10

>On account of many people fighting over Genie to do their research, Genie was forced to move back in with her biological mother in 1975. Genie’s mother attempted to sue the children hospital and many other scientists for treating her daughter more like a test dummy than a human being. All scientists were shut off from Genie. This caused Genie’s conditions to get worse and her mother found her too difficult to take care of and sent her back into a foster home, where Genie was subject to further abuse. After scientists were no longer allowed to use Genie as a test subject, more questions arose.11 Did research interfere with Genie’s therapeutic treatment? Unfortunately, after leaving Genie alone in foster care, her progress was compromised and she was afraid to open her mouth, which led her back to silence.12

  1. Encyclopedia of Special Education: A Reference for the Education of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Disabilities and Other Exceptional Individuals, 2013, s.v. “Kasper Hauser Syndrome,” by Cecil R. Reynolds, Kimberly J. Vannest, and Elaine Fletcher-Janzen.
  2. Kendra Cherry, “Overview of feral child Genie Wiley,” Very well Mind, November 25, 2018, https://www.verywellmind.com/genie-the-story-of-the-wild-child-2795241.
  3. Loretta Kasper, “The Civilizing of Genie,” In Teaching English through the Disciplines: Psychology, October 8, 2002, http://kccesl.tripod.com/genie.html.
  4. Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 2008, s.v. “Critical period,” by David Crystal; Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2018, s.v. “Critical Period Hypothesis,” by Janine Ungvarsky.
  5. Loretta Kasper, “The Civilizing of Genie,” In Teaching English through the Disciplines: Psychology, October 8, 2002, http://kccesl.tripod.com/genie.html.
  6. Dictionary of Sociolinguistics, 2004, s.v. “Zone of proximal development (ZPD),” by Joan Swann, Ana Deumert, Theresa Lillis.
  7. Loretta Kasper, “The Civilizing of Genie,” In Teaching English through the Disciplines: Psychology, October 8, 2002, http://kccesl.tripod.com/genie.html.
  8. Encyclopedia of Special Education: A Reference for the Education of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Disabilities and Other Exceptional Individuals, 2013, s.v. “Genie,” by Cecil R. Reynolds, Kimberly J. Vannest, and Elaine Fletcher-Janzen.
  9. Encyclopedia of Special Education: A Reference for the Education of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Disabilities and Other Exceptional Individuals, 2013, s.v. “Kasper Hauser Syndrome,” by Cecil R. Reynolds, Kimberly J. Vannest, and Elaine Fletcher-Janzen.
  10. Roger Shattuck, The Forbidden Experiment (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1980), 216-218; Kendra Cherry, “Overview of feral child Genie Wiley,” Very well Mind, November 25, 2018, https://www.verywellmind.com/genie-the-story-of-the-wild-child-2795241.
  11. Kendra Cherry, “Overview of feral child Genie Wiley,” Very well Mind, November 25, 2018, https://www.verywellmind.com/genie-the-story-of-the-wild-child-2795241.
  12. Encyclopedia of Special Education: A Reference for the Education of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Disabilities and Other Exceptional Individuals, 2013, s.v. “Feral Children,” by Cecil R. Reynolds, Kimberly J. Vannest, and Elaine Fletcher-Janzen.

Danniella Villarreal

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109 comments

  • Christopher Hohman

    Nice article. The things that happened to Genie as a child are just terrible. No child should ever be treated the way she was by their parents. It is good that she was able to develop simple language so she could communicate with her doctors just a little, but it does seem like she was mistreated by them too because they used her as a test case instead of a human being. It is terrible that Genie returned to foster care after her family could not raise her.

  • Auroara-Juhl Nikkels

    This story was captivating. I had hears some about this story, but your article opened my eyes to the full story. What happened to this poor child is horrific. It astounds me how disgusting and cruel some people can be. I wish that Genie had had even a slightly better life after she got away from her father, but it sounds like her life was just hard all the way through.

  • Thomas Fraire

    This article is really sad, it is tragic that someone had to be raised in an environment that she did due to neglect. It was very interesting though and it was very similar to an article I had written a while back. So I really enjoyed it these cases interest me a lot because it is cool to see how people try to rehabilitate these misfortunate people. Congrats on your nomination it was well deserved!

  • Krystal Rodriguez

    I have heard about the story of this girl before. Her story is so saddening and it’s tragic that someone would do that to an innocent child. It’s horrible to hear how she was treated and all the years she spent alone with no one to help her. Her ending is also so sad since the scientist used her for their own research and left her even more scared than before. It is an overall interesting story and the article really described it well into detail.

  • Maya Mani

    What happened to her was just so tragic. I still don’t understand the logic behind an abusive parent, and I feel so terrible that she has to pay the consequences of these actions for the rest of her life. However it’s good that she was able to make progress in grasping language, she really is a remarkable person. I commend her for surviving such a traumatizing childhood but she’s still trying her best.

  • Maria Garcia

    This article was fantastic. I had never heard of Genie, but now that I have, it’s crazy to believe that someone could and would put their child through something like this. Thirteen years of being treated like a literal caged animal is absolutely disgusting. I hate the idea of animals being cooped up, and the fact that someone has the audacity to do it to their own child is extremely aggravating. It’s sad that after so much progress that was made, Genie went back to how she was when she was first helped.

  • Vanessa Sanchez

    Amazing article. I have heard some details about this story before but I never really knew much about the story. I could only imagine the trauma the child could possibly have. Being stuck in a basement ever since just a child is horrible. How can a parent have such cruelty to an innocent children. To top it off the evil didn’t get a necessarily pay back. The father escaped from the years in jail by killing himself and running away from the consequences.

  • Sharriah Martinez

    This was a great read. The very first opening paragraph was amazing just in itself, it made you want to keep reading. It is horrible that because her father hated children she lived such a bad life. It is sad that the people that are blessed with the opportunity to have children do things like this. The mom was brave enough to tell a social worker about the wrong her husband was doing. Genie was found in such a terrible condition its heart breaking.

  • Nadia Carrasco

    I can only imagine what it was like living in the basement as a child. I do not know how any father could do all these terrible things to their child. What really got under my skin was that her father got away with his wrong doings by committing suicide. Her ending is also so sad since the scientist used her for their own research after all the trauma she had already went through.

  • Thomas Fraire

    I wrote an article similar to this my freshman year and I ran into a lot of documents on her, but never really looked into them. It is crazy and tragic that someone had to grow up like that. It is so sad that she was trapped in a house unable to speak and there was no justice ever found for her because her dad just committed suicide. This article was very well written and I really enjoyed

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