Feral children are children who have lived isolated from human contact starting from a very young age.
Their separation from society may be the result of being lost, abandoned, or even taken away by animals. Sometimes
abandonment is apparently due to parents rejecting a child's severe intellectual impairment or physical disability.
Some feral children experience child abuse or trauma before being abandoned. There are reports of such children
living with or being reared by wild animals. Legend and fiction also suggest that wolves, bears, or other normally
hostile animals often adopt feral children as one of their own. Science, however, has found only a few such cases
to study. Feral children often seem mentally impaired, and in particular have almost insurmountable trouble
learning a human language. They also lack any number of social skills. In any case, converting a feral child
into a relatively normal member of any human society is usually unworkable.
Case studies are empirical examples of in depth analysis of a single person's life. They are naturalistic,
as the information is not gathered from any laboratory experiments; they involve extensive interviews and direct
observations. They are created in order to historicize observations and as a way for others to gather research
about the observations. Many fields including medcine, psychology, and sociology use case studies in order to
further gain understanding about specific observations.
Feral children case studies
Created by Krissi Place
Mpsmks2@aol.com
All comments are appreciated!
last modified on November 14, 2004
