What is a feral child

A feral child is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age.

Table of Contents Show

• What is a Feral Child?
• Famous Feral Children
• Find a Child Counselor

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the differences between the fictional and real-life depictions of feral children

Key Points

• Legendary and fictional feral children are often depicted as growing up with relatively normal human intelligence and skills and an innate sense of culture or civilization.
• In reality, feral children lack the basic social skills that are normally learned in the process of enculturation. They almost always have impaired language ability and mental function. These impairments highlight the role of socialization in human development.
• The impaired ability to learn language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a critical period for language learning, and is taken as evidence in favor of the critical period hypothesis.

• enculturation: The process by which an individual adopts the behaviour patterns of the culture in which he or she is immersed.
• critical period: A critical period refers to the window of time during which a human needs to experience a particular environmental stimulus in order for proper development to occur.
• feral child: A child who is raised without human contact as a result of being abandoned, allegedly often raised by wild animals.

A feral child is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no (or little) experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language. Some feral children have been confined in isolation by other people, usually their own parents. In some cases, this child abandonment was due to the parents rejecting a child’s severe intellectual or physical impairment. Feral children may have experienced severe child abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away.

Myths, legends, and fictional stories have depicted feral children reared by wild animals such as wolves and bears. Legendary and fictional feral children are often depicted as growing up with relatively normal human intelligence and skills and an innate sense of culture or civilization, coupled with a healthy dose of survival instincts. Their integration into human society is also made to seem relatively easy. These mythical children are often depicted as having superior strength, intelligence, and morals compared to “normal” humans. The implication is that because of their upbringing they represent humanity in a pure and uncorrupted state, similar to the noble savage.

In reality, feral children lack the basic social skills that are normally learned in the process of enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright, and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning human language. The impaired ability to learn language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a critical period for language learning at an early age, and is taken as evidence in favor of the critical period hypothesis. It is theorized that if language is not developed, at least to a degree, during this critical period, a child can never reach his or her full language potential. The fact that feral children lack these abilities pinpoints the role of socialization in human development.

Famous examples of feral children include Ibn Tufail’s Hayy, Ibn al-Nafis’ Kamil, Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, and the legends of Atalanta, Enkidu and Romulus and Remus. Tragically, feral children are not just fictional. Several cases have been discovered in which caretakers brutally isolated their children and in doing so prevented normal development.

A real-life example of a feral child is Danielle Crockett, known as “The Girl in the Window”. The officer who found Danielle reported it was “the worst case of child neglect he had seen in 27 years”. Doctors and therapists diagnosed Danielle with environmental autism, yet she was still adopted by Bernie and Diane Lierow. Danielle could not speak or respond to others nor eat solid food. Today, Danielle lives in Tennessee with her parents and has made remarkable progress. She communicates through the PECS system and loves to swim and ride horses.

Peter Pan: Peter Pan is an example of a fictional feral child.

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A feral child is one which has lived isolated from human contact, often from a very young age. As a result the child grows up with little or no experience of human care, behaviour or language. Some were cruelly confined or abandoned by their own parents, rejected perhaps because of their intellectual or physical impairment, or the parent’s belief that this was the case. In other instances the loss of both parents was the cause. Others ran away after experiencing abuse. Yet more ended up in the wild and were ‘adopted’ by animals as a result of a wide variety of circumstances – getting lost, being taken by wild animals, etc.

Documented cases of feral children are geographically spread over four continents, and vary in age from babies taken by wild animals up to eight year olds. Of course, these cases are only known of because the child survived. It is not difficult to think that there are probably untold cases where the outcome was less favourable.

It is documented that, in most cases where rescued children were very young before becoming feral they do not recover or develop the ability to speak or adjust to normal life and in some cases do not even move as normal human beings, preferring to continue for a long time to walk on all fours, climb trees, eat raw flesh, etc.. There are only a few instances where they have completely adjusted to a normal life - speaking, reading, writing, and communicating. There are several instances where the rescued child became the subject of intensive scientific research – to attempt to determine the origin of speech and language.

As a mother of two young boys I was appalled and intrigued in turn when I first learned about feral children. My initial reaction was to think how parents could either neglect or lose their child. My maternal instinct goes into overdrive when I consider these young people experiencing their lives alone or in the company of wild animals. Then I consider and admire the fortitude they must have shown to survive such isolation and extreme circumstances. In any of the circumstances that I have read about, it completely overwhelms the boundaries of my comprehension.

However, I have risen to the challenge of trying to capture my thoughts photographically about the isolation under which these youngsters found themselves, wondering at the same time if those living in the companionship of wild animals were perhaps better off than those whose young lives were spent with no companionship at all.

I chose 15 cases to portray, these range from a girl who as a toddler was confined by her parents to a potty chair for ten years to that of a baby boy who was stolen by a leopardess and found three years later in the company of her and her latest cubs. My idea was not to replicate the exact scenes, but to interpret and duplicate the feelings and actions of each feral child living their experience. Some spent most of their time indoors, even in close proximity to or inside human habitation. Yet others spent the duration of their feral life outside, exposed to the elements, depending on their own ability and that of their wild companions for shelter and food and water, not to mention constantly having to avoid danger and health problems.

Life is complex, for some more than others, even when we are considering a normal human life. Its complexity varies from one part of the globe to the other. In considering feral children, who are fully human, at least at the start of their lives, how can we not look at my images and question and wonder about the tenacious survival instincts of these 15 human beings.

What is a Feral Child?

Many of the traits that people think of as quintessentially human, including language, social skills, and a desire to interact with others, are learned early in life. Feral children are children who miss out on even the most basic socialization; as such, they might never develop life skills typically needed to function independently in society. For this reason, some developmental psychologists have theorized that there is a critical period for human socialization beyond which a person cannot be properly socialized to the human behavior that is considered normal by society’s standards.

While the most popular conception of a feral child involves a child raised in the woods by wolves, children do not have to live in nature to become feral. Extreme abuse and neglect can also interfere with normal developmental processes. A child locked in a basement or left in a crib for weeks could become feral. Feral children tend to take on the characteristics of their environment. Thus a child who is raised in the wilderness might be more comfortable around animals, but a child who is abandoned in a basement might be afraid of any social interaction and any unenclosed space.

Famous Feral Children

Find a Child Counselor

The stories of feral children have been popular reading for centuries. For example, in Rudyard Kipling’s fictional story, The Jungle Book, Mowgli is a child raised by wolves and accustomed to interacting with animals. There have also been several highly publicized reports of actual feral children, including Genie, a child who was locked in her parents’ basement for years. Psychologists attempted to help Genie develop language and basic social skills, but she remained severely delayed for her entire life. In 2009, a five-year-old child in Russia was rescued by police after being raised as a pet. Rather than communicating with other people, she reportedly barked and hissed.

References:

1. Blomfield, A. (2009, May 27). ‘Feral’ child barks and hisses after being raised as pet. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5393378/Feral-child-barks-and-hisses-after-being-raised-as-a-pet.html
2. Keith, F. (n.d.). 10 modern cases of feral children. Listverse. Retrieved from http://listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-children/

Last Updated: 01-17-2018

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