Feral children
Dec. 16th, 2003 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Fascinating prog on TV last night about feral children (children who have been severely neglected or raised by animals).
One thing the scientists have learnt from these children is that we have a window of opportunity as very young children to learn language. If a child isn't talked to and doesn't hear language when very young (we're talking under 3 here), they can never learn to speak. They can learn words, but will never master stringing them together to communicate, will never master grammar. The part of the brain that deals with grammar actually shrinks away and can never redevelop.
The other thing these children never really learn is how to develop appropriate personal relationships with other people. Again, the complexity of how to relate to others in the intensely social setup we humans have is something you apparently have to learn when still very very young. And if you don't get the social contact, your brain doesn't develop properly.
CAT scans of the brains of these feral children show how incredibly different they are from those of 'normal' children.
But the thing that came over most strongly to me from the programme was that the most important thing the psychiatrists etc working with these children did was touch them. Hold them, give them simple physical affection. Above everything else this seems to be what children need to develop normally.
When I think how much time I've spent (and still spend) hugging and cuddling my children (even my too-big-for-all-that-soppy-stuff 6-year-old boy) I'm so glad I've done it.
One thing the scientists have learnt from these children is that we have a window of opportunity as very young children to learn language. If a child isn't talked to and doesn't hear language when very young (we're talking under 3 here), they can never learn to speak. They can learn words, but will never master stringing them together to communicate, will never master grammar. The part of the brain that deals with grammar actually shrinks away and can never redevelop.
The other thing these children never really learn is how to develop appropriate personal relationships with other people. Again, the complexity of how to relate to others in the intensely social setup we humans have is something you apparently have to learn when still very very young. And if you don't get the social contact, your brain doesn't develop properly.
CAT scans of the brains of these feral children show how incredibly different they are from those of 'normal' children.
But the thing that came over most strongly to me from the programme was that the most important thing the psychiatrists etc working with these children did was touch them. Hold them, give them simple physical affection. Above everything else this seems to be what children need to develop normally.
When I think how much time I've spent (and still spend) hugging and cuddling my children (even my too-big-for-all-that-soppy-stuff 6-year-old boy) I'm so glad I've done it.
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Date: 2003-12-16 10:02 am (UTC)Wonder what the psychiatrists would say about the soggy cornflake issue though...*s*
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Date: 2003-12-16 10:13 am (UTC)like mother like daughter), so at least I've no worries about her linguistic development!no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 10:29 am (UTC)Mine used to say things like *talkative* (i.e. spends more time chatting than concentrating on work) hehehehe
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Date: 2003-12-16 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 11:32 am (UTC)Little kids (and big kids) are such touchy-feely beasts and I simply could not bear to push five year olds off when they crawled onto my lap or ran up to give me a hug.
I remember taking classes on the theory of language acquisition and language learning - the difference between soaking it up as a tiny child and then trying to pound in new lexis and grammar as a teen/adult. Who was who said that learning one's first five or six languages is difficult, then it gets a lot easier (or something like that)?
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Date: 2003-12-16 12:46 pm (UTC)I've noticed this with DS's after-school club. They're very anti-touching. It's all this paedophilia and HSE stuff. I think not touching a child does a lot of harm.
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Date: 2003-12-16 12:51 pm (UTC)And at DD's nursery we've had to sign special consent forms so that the staff can put suncream on her in the summer. I ask you!
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Date: 2003-12-16 01:02 pm (UTC)The worst incident I heard came from a colleague who'd been assisting in a school where a boy in 2nd year had soiled his trousers. The secretary called his mum and asked her to come in and he was made to stand at the back of the class for twenty minutes, smelly and dirty, because none of the adults would take responsibility for taking him to the toilet and helping him to clean up a little bit of shit. That poor kid.
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Date: 2003-12-16 01:10 pm (UTC)This friend of mine is someone I would love to have teaching my small children. And it's such a shame we don't have more men teaching the little ones - all my son's teachers are women, so except for his father and our male friends he has no real male role models. It's a very female environment.
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Date: 2003-12-16 01:19 pm (UTC)I never had a male teacher until I got secondary school, then it was split about 50/50.
Actually, now that I think about it, I hardly remember any men in my early childhood. Dad and my brother, of course, but grandad died when I was 4 and everyone else was female. How odd. Maybe something to do with being in a small, traditional and conservative town - the women tended to work at home and the men worked away at the construction yard on day/night shifts.
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Date: 2003-12-16 01:35 pm (UTC)Anyway, why couldn't they have removed him from the room quietly and discreetly?
Makes me want to throttle them. RRggg.
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Date: 2003-12-16 01:41 pm (UTC)Why make such a big deal out of it? How could they have been so callous and stupid? Why were they so scared? (Or squeamish? Goddamnit, little kids are always covered in something - leave the icky feelings at the door.)
Now I'm feeling angry again! Thinking happy thoughts. La la la.
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Date: 2003-12-16 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 12:51 pm (UTC)When we emigrated to Scotland, I had to (against my human instincts) take DS one side and explain that these people were extremely reserved and didn't like people to get too close to them physically. He'd been hanging on the other kids and putting his arms around them and they'd been reacting with complete horror. It was such a shame. He couldn't understand why he had to stay away from his friends.
In some ways, I prefer the African way of doing things. :-(
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Date: 2003-12-16 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 03:27 pm (UTC)