ABC News was unable to find current contact information for Rigler, who is now 87 and reportedly in failing health. But in a NOVA documentary, the Riglers said they assumed the foster care arrangement was "temporary. Genie was sent to foster care homes for special needs children, including one that was particularly religious. She immediately regressed. She was readmitted to Children's Hospital in for two weeks and was able to describe in sign language how her foster parents had punished her for vomiting.
After that incident, Genie never regained her speech. Again, she was thrown into foster care, some of it abusive, according to Curtiss and UCLA's archival data on her case. When Genie turned 18 in , just after the study ended, Irene Wiley convinced the court to drop the abuse charges against her, claiming she had also been a victim, and Wiley took custody of Genie for a very short time.
According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, Wiley worked as a "domestic servant" and quickly found she could not tend to Genie's needs. In , after cataract surgery, Wiley again petitioned for custody and obtained legal guardianship of her daughter, but by then Genie had been placed in an adult care home.
No one has released the name of the facility, and the private foundation that supports her care would not give out the information. In , Wiley filed a lawsuit against the hospital and her daughter's individual caregivers, alleging they used Genie for "prestige and profit. The suit was settled in , but the rancor deepened.
Curtiss, who had continued to work with Genie on a volunteer basis, was banned from visiting her. Meanwhile, the Riglers reconnected with Irene Wiley. Russ Rymer, author of the book "Genie: An Abused Child's Flight From Silence," acknowledged the arguments between researchers affected those who tried to tell her story.
That was also part of the breakdown that turned her treatment into such a tragedy. Harry Bromley-Davenport, whose self-described "sentimental film "Mockingbird Don't Sing" told the story from Curtiss' point of view, spent two years researching the case, including 40 hours of interviews with Curtiss. That person, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that at that time, around the year , Genie was living in a privately run facility for six to eight mentally underdeveloped adults. But she was happy.
Kelly Weedon, a year-old student at the University of Greenwich in Britain, has spent eight months researching the case for her English dissertation. She is flying to Los Angeles in June to view the special collections at UCLA, where Genie's story is encased in 37 feet of boxes that hold medical records, videotapes and legal files, as well as Genie's artwork.
Weedon is studying to be a special education teacher and has forged relationships with most of the players in Genie's drama. In the end, they were crucified for it. But they would have been crucified, whatever they did.
In her meticulous research, Weedon learned Genie's real name and, "without too much more investigation" could find her -- but has decided against it. I wouldn't do it -- for her sake and her memory. We'll notify you here with news about. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest?
Eventually, Genie was removed from Butler's care and went to live in the home of psychologist David Rigler, where she remained for the next four years. Despite some difficulties, she appeared to do well in the Rigler household. She enjoyed listening to classical music on the piano and loved to draw, often finding it easier to communicate through drawing than through other methods. NIMH withdrew funding in , due to the lack of scientific findings. Linguist Susan Curtiss had found that while Genie could use words, she could not produce grammar.
She could not arrange these words in a meaningful way, supporting the idea of a critical period in language development. Rigler's research was disorganized and largely anecdotal. Without funds to continue the research and care for Genie, she was moved from the Rigler's care. In , Genie returned to live with her birth mother. When her mother found the task too difficult, Genie was moved through a series of foster homes, where she was often subjected to further abuse and neglect.
Unfortunately, the progress that had occurred during her first stay had been severely compromised by the subsequent treatment she received in foster care. Genie was afraid to open her mouth and had regressed back into silence. While the lawsuit was eventually settled, it raised important questions about the treatment and care of Genie.
Did the research interfere with the girl's therapeutic treatment? Today, Genie lives in an adult foster care home somewhere in southern California. Little is known about her present condition, although an anonymous individual hired a private investigator to track her down in and described her as happy.
But this contrasts with other reports. Psychiatrist Jay Shurley visited her on her 27th and 29th birthdays and characterized her as largely silent, depressed , and chronically institutionalized. If you want to do rigorous science, then Genie's interests are going to come second some of the time. If you only care about helping Genie, then you wouldn't do a lot of the scientific research.
So, what are you going to do? To make matters worse, the two roles, scientist and therapist , were combined in one person, in her case. So, I think future generations are going to study Genie's case not only for what it can teach us about human development but also for what it can teach us about the rewards and the risks of conducting 'the forbidden experiment.
Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Schoneberger T. Three myths from the language acquisition literature.
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. American Psychological Association. Language acquisition device. Vanhove J. The critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition: A statistical critique and a reanalysis. PLoS One. The secret of the wild child [transcript]. Broadcasted Pines, M. The civilizing of Genie. In: Kasper LF, ed. Teaching English Through the Disciplines: Psychology. Whittier; Rigler, David. Collection of research materials related to linguistic-psychological studies of Genie pseudonym.
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Clio for Museums. Grant Resources. Support Clio. The story of Genie Wiley is breathtaking and one of cruelest isolation stories in the world. She was born in and when she was 20 months old, her father Clark Wiley decided to isolate his daughter completely.
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