Katie's isolation from the world began when she was 20 months old and went on for 13 years. During her isolation she was abused by her father. In her 13 years of isolation she never learned to talk; only a few words including "stopit" and "nomore." Her motor skills were that of a baby and she never learned the proper way to act and behave. When Katie's mother took her out of isolation she had to learn all these skills. She was pushed to learn how to talk and act in a way that society would accept. Right away Katie progressed fast, but after awhile her progress began to level off. She was never able to get past a 3rd grade level. To this day Genie, Katie, is unable to put together grammatical sentences. When children are isolated from language there is a block and they are unable to speak in sentences. This is what happened to Genie. It wasn't that she was "retarded," it was because she was isolated from the language. She was then expected to learn and catch on just because she was old enough to communicate and no longer isolated. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=4804490&page=1
Review of Mockingbird Don't Sing
