FERAL CHILDREN
6 Read the passage and answer the questions below.
The term "feral child" is used to describe a child who has grown up isolated from human communities. Throughout history, cases of feral children have been documented and, in many of these, the children are believed to have been raised by wild animals.
Feral children have rarely integrated fully into society. The lack of care, emotional stimulation, and education have made their social progress difficult and delayed their mental development. Feral children have often become the subjects of scientific studies and debates that have transformed them into laboratory subjects, used to prove scientific theories.
This was the case of Victor, a French feral boy who lived in the woods of the Aveyron region of France in the late 1790s and was thought to be raised by wolves. In 1797, he was caught by local hunters.
By then he was around 12 years old and could not speak. The doctors who first examined him thought that he might be deaf and mute, but he was healthy. He had never come into contact with any language. Although Victor showed some signs of progress, he was aggressive, hyperactive and uninterested in learning. He was sent to the National Institute of the Deaf and became a kind of local attraction.
Then, he was adopted by a medical student, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who moved him into his own home. Itard was the one who gave him the name "Victor". Under Itard's supervision, Victor learnt several phrases and accepted some social conventions, but he never became a fully functional member of society. However, he received proper care and lived until 1828, when he died of pneumonia at an estimated age of 40.
He represents a case of great value in psychology as regards the question "nature vs. nurture". Moreover, in 1989, the German psychologist Uta Frith wrote a book entitled Autism: Explaining the Enigma. A chapter of this book is about Victor's story. Frith supposes that the boy was autistic because he had typical autistic behaviours, such as incapacity to socialise, lack of attention and frequent back and forth rocking.
Victor's story inspired the French film L'enfant sauvage (1970), directed by François Truffaut and the novel Wild Boy (2004), written by Jill Dawson.
1. Why is it difficult for feral children to socially integratE!?
2. What have they frequently become?
3. Who first found Victor?
4. Was he really deaf and mute?
5. How did he behave?
6. Who adopted him?
7. Did he make any further progress?
8. Did the quality of his life improve under the supervision of ltard?
9. Why is Victor's case important?
10. What has Victor's story inspired?
GLOSSARY
deaf: sordo
feral: selvaggio
forth: avanti
hunter: cacciatore
lack: mancanza
nurture: (form.) educazione
pneumonia: polmonite
raised: (qui) allevati
rocking: dondolio
wild: selvaggio