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<\/a><\/div>\nThis story about a little girl who suffers such horrendous physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her parents that, when she is finally released from their care <\/span><\/span>at the age of thirteen<\/span><\/span>, she has no language and no social skills is<\/i> definitely a tragedy. That the scientific community then saw a chance to study language from a number of previously impossible perspectives need not have been a tragedy had the people behind all the research and experimentation not lost sight of the fact that Genie was actually a human being with very human needs. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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The first part of the tragedy was Genie’s misfortune to have been born into a completely dysfunctional family; the second part was the fact that those people who later assumed responsibility for her physical, emotional and psychological well-being did not fully understand her need to be able to bond with one caring human. They were all focused on their research, and, somewhere between the reams of tests and papers, they all lost sight of Genie; when they finally realized that she was still there, it was too late. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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RussRymer<\/a> has woven together a desperately sad story with substantial descriptions of scientific research into the origins of language, and the result is extremely interesting, compelling and definitely readable. It is impossible to read the book without questioning oneself where the line goes between what is ethically acceptable and what is not.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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