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Background:
Main Tenets of the Critical Period Hypothesis: (Fromkin)
-language acquisition innate
-lateralization of language function
-loss of brain plasticity after lateralization
Theory based on: (Hurford)
-Recovery from traumatic aphasia
-Lateralization of speech function and hemispherectomy
-Down’s syndrome children
Genie's case: (Curtiss)
-Born 1957 C-section
-isolated from 20 months to 13 yrs. 9 months
-Never allowed to talk to anyone
-Beat when she talked
-Dr. Kent's notes upon her admission to the hospital
-Testing began after 11 months, September 1971
-She could understand individual words in beginning
-17 comprehension test/ week
-Tests required "pointing" responses
-Genie in relation to peers:
-large vocab
-poor grammar
-poor expressive speech abilities
-Genie can't be used as evidence for critical period
-unsure of brain damage prior
-some language acquisition
-sparse further study beyond 1977
-critical mechanism or damage from past?
*all from Curtiss
Curtiss, Susan. "The Linguistic Development
of Genie." Language 50.3 (1974): 528-54. JSTOR. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Fromkin, Victoria, Stephen Krashen, Susan
Curtiss, David Rigler, and Marilyn Rigler. "The Development of Language in Genie: A Case of Language Acquisition Beyond the Critical Period." Brain and Language (1974): 87-107. Science Direct. Elsevier. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Genie: Secret of the Wild Child. Youtube. Youtube, 14 Oct. 2015.
Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Grimshaw, Gina M., Ana Adelstein, M.Philip
Bryden, and G.E. Mackinnon. "First-Language Acquisition in Adolescence: Evidence for a Critical Period for Verbal Language Development." Brain and Language 63.2 (1998): 237-55. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Hurford, James R. "The Evolution of the
Critical Period for Language Acquisition." Cognition 40.3 (1991): 159-201. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
“Throughout this period she retained saliva and frequently spit it out into a paper towel or into her pajama top. She made no other sounds except for a kind of throaty whimper. . . . (Later in the session) . . she imitated “back” several times, as well as “fall” when I said “The puppet will fall.” She could communicate (her) needs non-verbally, at least to a limited extent. Apart from a peculiar laugh, frustration was the only other clear affective behavior we could discern. When very angry she would scratch at her own face, blow her nose violently into her clothes and often void urine. During these tantrums there was no vocalization. We felt that the eerie silence that accompanied these reactions was probably due to the fact that she had been whipped by her father when she made noise”
(Kent 1972) as noted in Fromkin
Evidence Against Critical Period Theory
- Question of whether she was retarded from birth (Fromkin)
-Curtiss says due to intelligence tests (Genie: Secret of the Wild Child)
-Others say yes due to sleep spindle test (Genie: Secret of the Wild Child)
-Some language acquisition was obviously possible (Fromkin)
-impressive semantic development
-grammatical progress
-Worst performance in Language section of intelligence tests (Fromkin)
-Dichotic sound tests showed complete right hemisphere dominance (Curtiss)
-In comparison to her peers, significantly poor syntactic development (Curtiss)
-verb tense, word order, prepositions, pronouns
-Background
-Evidence in favor of critical period
-Evidence against critical period
-Conclusion
-Works Cited
-Entanglement in legal cases after 1977 caused further research to be stunted (Genie: Secret of the Wild Child)
-Genie's physical maturation (Grimshaw)
-Critical period mechanism or result of tragic background? (Grimshaw)