Learning Theories and Language Development on Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child

WATCH THE VIDEO: GENIE: SECRETS OF A WILD CHILD ON YOUTUBE
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What did you learn about nature/nurture from watching this video (3-4 paragraphs)?
Genie's case provides a closer look at the case of nature versus nurture in the essence that her situation covered both aspects quite well. However, in this raging debate between the two, it looks like Genie was more affected by her surrounding environment than her genes. It might not be clearly known if she was born as a normal child because of the age that she was found, and hence the genetic aspect might not be conclusive enough. However, the fact that she was a normal adult but with very limited abilities clearly indicated the complexities of her environment.
In essence, whatever the genetic setup, the external factors in the environment played a crucial role when it came to her overall development. Aspects such as nutrition as well as exposure essentially worked to either turn on or off certain aspects of her growth and development (Bullard, 2016). Learned behaviors are clearly shown to be quite an essential aspect of human development, this thereby placing nurture on the front foot in this case. Being confined in a room for all those years, she was unable to really engage in any meaningful relationships with people as well as the environment. She missed out on some things that can only be learned through association with the environment or the surrounding.
Environmental aspects, therefore, play quite a vital role in how genes set out. The environment acts as the stimuli that speed up or slow down the rate of genetic influences in one way or the other (Moore, 2015). To this end, therefore, it is quite easy to see how the lack of correlation or harmony between these two aspects placed the growth and development of Genie at ransom. She was technically handicapped when it came to growth, as parts of her own growth we limited greatly. She was like a child in an adult's body, a serious toll that resulted in abnormality.
What did you learn about language development from this video (2-3 paragraphs)?
When it comes to language development, the case is also quite interesting because The initial cognitive ability and mental stability during birth cannot be clearly known. Language development, however, is greatly a factor of the environment. It is a social construct to a large extent, and therefore, relies greatly on the interaction between an individual and others. Genie is mute and doesn't really know any kind of language because she wasn't exposed to any kind of it. In other terms, she was not taught any language by anyone since she was all alone for all those years.
If language development was all about the genetic makeup or setup of an individual, then Genie would be talking even after all those years in solitary confinement. This was, however, not the case, as she had to be taught and hence relate with the environment in order to start acquiring the knowledge of the language while also making her cerebrum grow in that manner. As Saxton (2010) puts it, language is acquired, hence a learned concept.
Genie's case raises the consequences that isolation has on the social development of children. Some scientists argue that isolatio...