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Effects of Childhood Isolation
1.
For many centuries people have wondered what human beings would be like if they
were raised in isolation from human society. Some speculated that such children
would be mere brutes, revealing, in essence, our real "human nature." Others felt
that they would be perfect beings, perhaps speaking the language of Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden. Today there are obvious ethical considerations that make any
experiment involving the deliberate isolation of children impossible, but earlier ages
were not always under such moral inhibitions.
2.
It has been proved beyond doubt that children need more than mere physical care if
they are to survive and prosper. They need emotional attachments with at least one
other person. Without this bond, socialization is impaired, and irreversible damage
may be done to the
personality. Evidence for this view comes from four main
sources: reports of so-called feral (untamed) children who were allegedly raised by
wild animals; studies of children who were deliberately reared in isolation by their
own families; studies of children in institutions; and experiments that study the effects
of isolation.
“Feral" Children
3.
The evidence relating to "feral" children is highly dramatic but also highly unreliable.
Many societies have myths about children raised by animals. The Romans for
example, believed that the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, had been raised
by a wolf. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, a few cases
of the discovery of children whose behavior seemed more like that of animals than
human beings were reported from India, France, and elsewhere (Singh and Zingg,
1942; Malson, 1972; H. Lane, 1976; McLean, 1978; Shattuck, 1980). In each case
the children could not speak, reacted with fear and hostility towards human beings,
slouched or walked on all fours, and tore ravenously at their food. Attempts to
socialize the children are said to have met with little success, and all died at a young
age.
4.
There are two difficulties with these reports. The first is that the subjects were never
systematically examined by trained investigators, and the second is that we know
nothing about the history of the children before they were discovered. It seems
highly improbable that they had been raised by wild animals. It is far more likely that
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they had been abandoned by their own parents shortly before they were discovered
by other people. It is also possible that the children were already mentally disturbed,
autistic, or had been raised in some form of isolation before being abandoned
(Bettelheim, 1959).
Children Raised in Isolation
5.
Much more convincing evidence comes from studies of children who were
deliberately raised in isolation by their own families. Two such instances, both
occurring in the United States, have been reported by Kingsley Davis (1940, 1947).
6.
The first child, Anna, was discovered at the age of six. She had been born
illegitimate, and her grandfather had insisted that she be hidden from the world in an
attic room. Anna received a bare minimum of physical care and attention and had
virtually no opportunities for social interaction. When she was found she could not
talk, walk, keep herself clean, or feed herself, and she was totally apathetic,
expressionless, and indifferent to human beings. In fact, those who worked with her
believed at first she was deaf and possibly blind as well. David (1948) comments:
"Here, then, was a human organism which had missed nearly six years of
socialization. Her condition shows how little her purely biological resources, when
acting alone, could contribute to making her a complete person.”
7.
Attempts to socialize Anna had only limited success. The girl died four-and-a-half
years later, but in that time she was able to learn some words and phrases, although
she could never speak sentences. She also learned to use building blocks, to string
beads, to wash her hands and brush her teeth, to follow directions, and to treat a doll
with affection. She learned to walk but could only run clumsily. By the time of her
death at almost eleven she had reached the level of socialization of a child of two or
three.
8.
The second child, Isabelle, was discovered about the same time as Anna and was
approximately the same age, six-and-a-half. She too was an illegitimate child, and
her grandfather had kept her and her mother, a deaf-mute, in a dark room most of
the time. Isabelle had an advantage over Anna, of social interaction with her mother,
but she had no chance to develop speech; the two communicated with gestures.
When Isabelle was discovered, her behavior toward other people, especially men,
was "almost that of a wild animal." At first it was thought that she was deaf, for she
did not appear to hear the
sounds around her, and her speech was a strange
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Effects of Childhood Isolation
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croaking sound. The specialists who worked with her pronounced Isabelle
feebleminded and did not expect that she could ever be taught to speak.
9.
Unlike Anna, however, Isabelle had the advantage of being treated by a skilled team
of doctors and psychologists. After a slow start, she suddenly spurted through the
stages of learning that are usually characteristic for the first six years of childhood,
taking every stage in the usual order but at much greater speed than normal. By the
time she was eight-and-a-half years old she had reached an apparently normal level
of intellectual development and was able to attend school with other children. Her
greater progress seems to be related to the skill of her trainers, and the fact that her
mother was present during the isolation, and the fact that, unlike Anna, she was able
to gain the use of language.
Institutionalized Children
10.
The socialization of children who are raised in orphanages and similar institutions
differs from that of other children in one very important respect. Institutionalized
children rarely have the chance to develop close emotional ties with specific adults,
for although the children may interact with a large number of staff members, the
attendants simply do not have the time to devote much personal attention to any one
individual. The standard of nutrition and other physical care in institutions is
sometimes good and comparable to that in private homes, but relationships between
child and adult are usually minimal.
11.
In 1945, the psychologist Rene Spitz published an influential article on the effects
that these conditions have on children's personalities. Spitz compared infants living
with their mothers with infants of the same age who had been placed in the care of
an orphanage. The infants living with their mothers had plenty of opportunity for close
social interaction, but those in the institution received only routine care at mealtimes
and when their clothing or bedding was changed. Spitz found that the infants in the
orphanage were physically, socially, and emotionally retarded compared with the
other infants – a difference, moreover, that increased steadily as the children grew
older.
12.
Spitz's report was followed by a large number of studies on the effects of
institutionalization on infants and children, most of which arrived at similar
conclusions (Bowlby, 1969; Rutter, 1974). William Goldfarb (1945), for example,
compared forty children who had been placed in foster homes soon after birth with
forty children who had spent the first two years of their lives in institutions before
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being transferred to foster homes. He found that the institutionalized children suffered
a number of personality defects that persisted even after they had left the institutions.
They had lower IQ scores, seemed more aggressive and distractable, showed less
initiative, and were emotionally cold. Many other studies had reported similar
depressing effects on physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development, and
have confirmed that such disabilities suffered in early childhood tend to persist or
even grow worse in later years (for example, Provence and Lipton, 1962; Yarrow,
1963; Dennis, 1960; Dennis and Najaran, 1957).
Monkeys Raised in Isolation
13.
Harry Harlow and his associates at the University of Wisconsin have conducted a
series of important experiments on the effects of isolation on rhesus monkeys
(Harlow, 1958, 1965; Harlow and Harlow, 1962; Harlow and Zimmerman, 1959).
Harlow's work has shown that even in monkeys, social behavior is learned, not
inherited. The monkeys raised in isolation in his labs behave in a way that is similar
to that of human psychotics. They are fearful of, or hostile to, other monkeys, make
no attempt to interact with them, and are generally withdrawn and apathetic.
Monkeys reared in isolation do not know how to mate with other monkeys and
usually cannot be taught how to do so. If female monkeys who have been isolated
since birth are artificially impregnated, they become unloving and abusive mothers,
making little or no attempt to take care of their offspring. In one experiment Harlow
provided isolated monkey infants with two substitute mothers - one made of wire and
containing a feeding bottle and one covered with soft cloth but without a bottle. The
infant monkeys preferred the soft, cuddly "mother" to the one that fed them. This
wretched substitute for affection seemed more important to them than even food.
14.
Like all animal studies, Harlow's experiments must be treated with caution when
inferences are made for human behavior. After all, we are not monkeys. His studies
show, however, that without socialization, monkeys cannot develop normal social,
sexual, emotional, or maternal behavior. Since we know that human beings rely
much more heavily on learning than monkeys do, it seems fair to conclude that the
same would be true for us.
15.
The evidence from these varied sources, then, points overwhelmingly in the same
direction: without socialization, we are almost devoid of personality and are utterly
unable to face even the simplest challenges of life. Lacking the instincts that guide
the behavior of other animals, we can become social and thus fully human only by
learning through interaction with other people.
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Effects of Childhood Isolation