Wolf children (english)

Manystrange children were found in the world. They were called wolf children. Thesechildren had grown up without any contact with human society. The three mostmysterious of them that I am going to show about were Kamala, Viktor andKaspar.12-year-oldboy was captured. His movements resembled the movements of wild animals.

Theboy was naked. The boy was small for his age. He was deeply tanned and coveredin scars and scratches from his life in the forests. He could not speak and didnot react even if shouted in his ear He refused to wear clothes, ripping themoff whatever the weather. He would only eat familiar food such as potatoes orwalnuts. He walked uncertainly. There was no connection between his mind andhis body, and that he reflected

on nothing, he had no imagination, no memory.Itard began by using a system of rewards and punishments. At first, Itardrewarded any sound Victor made. Using simple painful method, over some monthsItard taught Victor the names of some household objects. Itard tried every way he could think of toteach Victor language. Used letters, Itard would spell out words like bring book and then demonstrate the action to Victor so that hewould understand. Victor, however, was strangely wooden even in the use of

thelimited vocabulary he had learnt - as if the words did not have any meaning.When after five years of tuition, Victor s progress remained on very low level,Itard had to admit defeat. Itard handed Victor over to the care of hishousekeeper who faithfully cared for him until he died in his forties,house-trained but still half-wild, fearful and mute. Kamala wasvery similar. The girl seemed to have no trace of humanness in the way sheacted and thought.

It was as if she had the mind of a wolf. She tore off anyclothes put on and would only eat raw meat. She only came awake after the moonrose. Kamala never smiled or showed any interest in human company. The onlyemotion that she showed was fear. Even her senses had become wolf-like. Singhclaimed her eyes were super sharp at night. Her hearing was also sharp -except, like Victor, she could not understand the human speech.

Gradually,Singh trained Kamala to accept other human ways, teaching her to eat normalfood, to sleep with the other children and to welcome the company of fellowhumans. However, when it came to teaching her to speak, Singh struggled. WithKamala, progress was slow. After several more years, her vocabulary hadincreased. In addition, Kamala s words were only partly formed and her grammarstilted.

But Kamala would only pronounce half the word. Kamala s progress, atthe age of 16, after nine years in the care of the orphanage, she still had themind of a two and a half year old.A strangeboy was found in Nurnberg. He was about16 years old and when given paper and pencil, he wrote the name KasparHauser. He was taken into custody. Thecustodian took Kaspar into his house and watched him. He had an innocent smile, but that was allhis face would express,

and he did not know how to use his fingers at all. Whenhe tried to walk, he stumbled like a toddler. Kasper learned to talk in brokensentences. He could only eat bread andwater other food would not stay with him. He did not seem to be aware of the difference between men and women atall. He was capable of speech, but it was mainly incoherent.

He was able totell the mayor that he had lived in a cell in Nuremberg all his life and he didnot know if it had been day or night. Kaspar showed some similarities withchildren who are learning language, and had made considerable progress inreading and writing. However, he was not a wolf child that Kamala and Victor.He had been caged - therefore he had learnt little about human society until hehad

been released at the age of 16.The mostimportant feature shared by the children was that none of them could speak -and they all had tremendous difficulty learning to speak once captured. Thechildren could hear - and so were not simply deaf - but they did not understandhuman voice excluding Kaspar. Almost equally surprising, the stories of wolfchildren suggest that walking upright is not an innate skill in human infants.They also were afraid of their captors.

A final characteristic shared by thewolf children was that they seemed somehow to lack memory and self-awareness.They could make simple associations and learn to recognize familiar people andsituations. However, they seemed unable to reflect on the past or the future.Only one of them, Kaspar, was able to develop the ability to speak, write, and wasinterested in human company. He appeared to be the most successful in learninghow to talk, but

Kaspar had not been raised in the wild. The early experiencesof children greatly influenced their capacity to learn later.