Relevant column.
This article is about Ng Chhaidy, who was discovered in the jungle in 2012–after having been missing since 1974. Does anyone know if this case is legit, and how would it affect Cecil’s column?
I have no idea if the case is legit, but it does seem consistent with Cecil’s article.
[QUOTE=Cecil Adams]
Most feral children have been severely stunted and remained so all their lives, suggesting that early human contact is essential to normal development.
[/QUOTE]
Ng Chhaidy disappeared at the age of four, so she managed to get a little bit of language and development in before she disappeared, but she obviously missed out on the rest. As predicted in Cecil’s column, she is severely stunted in many ways and will probably remain so for the rest of her life.
The article also mentions Danielle Crockett (Danielle Lierow) who, while not feral, was raised under very feral-like conditions and also suffers from development problems. These cases seem to confirm the deprivation theory that Cecil mentions in the last paragraph of his article.
Cecil’s article was written over twenty years ago. Maybe it needs a small update to mention these newer cases.
Cecil tends not to update columns unless there is some major development. I’ll draw this to his attention, to see if he’d like to add a footnote or something. The problem is that Cecil may write something, but READER staff need to fact-check the hell out of it, so the effort to add a post-columnal thought is often more effort than it’s worth.