The subject of feral children has fascinated me for several years. Now to learn that two children were found in the Ukraine, living among wild dogs; In addition, it has provided researchers with questions about language development and human psychology.
Victor: The First Documented Wild Child
Victor was an 11-year-old boy found in January 1800 near Saint Sernin sur Rance, in the south of France. Victor survived 11 years living in the forest; he crawled around on all fours and stole food from people’s gardens.
It is believed that since he had no human contact for the first 11 years of his life, he probably acquired the social skills he had from animals. He wore no clothes and his body bore various old and new scars from living in the wild.
When they found him, Victor couldn’t speak human language. The researchers at that time tried to resocialize Victor to the most appropriate social norms of the time and tried to teach him language. They made only minimal progress.
Victor lived to be 40 years old, which was probably the average lifespan at that time. He could never be socialized to live the kind of life that most of us would consider normal and healthy. Since Víctor’s case, psychologists and sociologists have been very interested in the development of language in cases of social abandonment.
Wild children in modern society
In 1991, an 8-year-old girl was found in Novaya Blagoveschenka, Ukraine. Her name was Oxanna Malaya. At that time, she was discovered living in the backyard of her family’s home in a kennel.
She had made friends with the dogs in the yard and basically took over their behaviors and actions. She walked on all fours, growled and barked. She would defend the territory in an aggressive display similar to that of an angry dog. She had minimal human language skills, but she communicated like her canine companions through animal-like actions.
Also, in Mirny, Ukraine, in 1999, a boy named Edik was discovered. Edik was 4 years old when he was discovered. Edik lived alone in a dilapidated apartment in a very poor part of Ukraine.
He had wild dogs that lived in the apartment with him, some say he had at least three dogs with him at one point.
The researchers believe it was the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals that strengthened the bond and created the “pack” mentality between the boy and the dogs. The dogs found that the boy would provide some food source, regardless of how infrequent; which meant that the dogs did not have to hunt. In return, the dogs provided the boy with affection and companionship.
What have Oxanna and Edik accomplished today?
Today, Oxanna and Edik are not classified as true feral children due to their earlier human socialization and the fact that they had some basic language skills early on.
But to this day, his language skills still lag behind his chronological development to this day. Researchers believe that Oxanna’s language skills will always lag behind other people her age because the age at which the brain can return those skills to full functional capacity was found to be past.
Edik, on the other hand, has made good progress. His language skills are still below those of other children his age. But research suggests that he will be able to recover enough language to function well in society. They believe it is based solely on the fact that he was discovered young enough that the brain can still learn the basic foundation necessary for language development.
Today, Oxanna and Edik live in residences where they interact with other people and staff. Both Oxanna and Edik have dogs in the homes where they live, so they can still enjoy them as pets. They no longer depend on these animals for survival, so their relationship with animals has changed a lot.
Both Oxanna and Edik now walk on two legs, like the rest of us, and dress in socially appropriate ways. It took both months and years to learn these basic social norms. A 2010 update indicates that Oxana is now trying to locate her biological mother and father in order to learn more about herself.
