ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the story of Genie. A key figure in the story of Genie and the person who was to spend the most time with her over the coming years was Susan Curtiss, a linguistics graduate at the University of California. Curtiss wrote and published her doctoral dissertation about Genie, and as she put it: to understand this case history, one must understand the family background. Genie was examined at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and treated for severe malnutrition. Clark would only make barking sounds and often growled at her like a dog might. She became transfixed by the music but only if it was classical. Although Genie became perhaps the most famous case study in psychology, she did not provide conclusive evidence for or against the critical period hypothesis of language acquisition. From early neurological investigations, it became obvious that Genie performed well on so-called right hemisphere tasks and extremely poorly on left hemisphere tasks.
