NATURE v NURTURE: FERAL CHILDREN Topic General Purpose Specific Purpose Central Idea/Thesis : Nature V Nurture: Feral Children

: To inform. : To inform my audience about what makes us humans,particularly whether nature or nurture. : From the Tarzan till real life incident, the cases of feral children will establish whether nature or nurture determines our innate qualities.

I. INTRODUCTION A. Gaining Attention/Attention Grabber: Have you ever wondered what makes you human? Will a boy raised in the wild become a man or a beast? Will a boy raised by wolves become wolf-like or is he hard wired to be a human? B. Motivating the Audience/Reason to Listen: The answer is found in an age-old debate. The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development. Are humans a product of genes or product of experience? C. Credibility Statement: I have been fascinated by the question What makes us humans? and started to do research on the subject matter, which led to me this topic. D. Preview of Main Ideas: To answer these questions, we would need to get to the core of human psychology without any influence from society.

II. BODY A. The Forbidden Experiment 1. The simplest way to solve this debate is to take a child, deprive it of any human contact and see how it develops. a) But of course this would be illegal, never mind unconscionable. Indeed, the very idea came to be known as The Forbidden Experiment. b) But then, scientist realised there was another option. 2. Cases of feral children. a) Do you remember being really young, and wishing like anything that you could run away from home and join the circus? b) However, the reality of feral children growing up in the wild without human love and interaction can have devastating and irreversible consequences.

Transition: Now that Ive discussed the about the The Forbidden Experiment, I will now explain further on feral children. B. Fictional stories & real incidents of feral children 1. There have been large accounts of fictional stories, myths and legends that have depicted feral children reared by wild animals such as wolves, apes, and bears. a) Famous examples include Rudyard Kiplings Mowgli and Edgar Rice Burroughss Tarzan which have been popularized in mainstream media through animated Disney films. b) Legendary and fictional feral children are often depicted as growing up with naturally good survival instincts; superior strength and integration into society seem to be relatively easy. 2. In reality, feral children lack the basic social skills that are normally learned in the process of enculturation.

a) For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright, or even wear. The obvious reason is that they have never been in an environment that has nurtured them to act in such manner. b) They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning a human language. c) A real life example would be John Ssebunya, an Ugandan boy raised by monkeys who was later discovered by a group of explorers in 1991. Till today, he had only been able to apprehend knowledge at a kindergarten level, though being 21 years old. It also showed that the effect of being brought up in such an environment left an impact on his behaviour and learning capability. Transition: Now that we have learned about the reality of feral children, I will discuss further on the real incidents that made an impact in the debate of Nature v Nurture. C. Scientific knowledge about feral children. 1. One of the best-known examples, the detailed diaries of Reverend Singh, who claimed to have discovered Amala and Kamala, two girls who had been brought up from birth by wolves in a forest in India, has been proven a fraud to obtain funds for his orphanage. Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim states that Amala and Kamala were born mentally and physically disabled. 2. Another significant case of feral children would be Oxana Malaya. Oxana Malaya was discovered in 1991, living with a pack of dogs on a rundown farm near the village of Novaya Blagoveschenka, Ukraine. When she was three, her alcoholic parents left her outside one night, so she found shelter and food with the dogs, and that is where she stayed. When she was found, she could hardly speak, and ran around on all fours barking. She now lives in a home for the mentally disabled; with reports saying she has the mental age of a six year old. Oxana was able to learn to talk again because she had already acquired some language before her abandonment. 3. The commonality among all cases of feral children is that they all fail to grasp proper human language skills and behaved civilized or human-like, though they are humans physically.

III. CONCLUSION A. Signalling the End To conclude ... B. Review of Main Points: ... today I have discussed the debate on Nature against Nurture, particularly on the subject matter of feral children. Reference to Introduction: In the debate of nature against nurture, cases of feral children do certainly clarify few matters. Ending with Impact: How a person behaves can be tied to influence such as parenting styles and learned experiences. For example, a child might learn through observation and reinforcement to say 'please' and 'thank you.' Another child might learn to behave aggressively by observing older children engage in violent behaviour on the playground. Based on the detailed discussion on feral children, I truly believe that nurture plays a relatively large role in shaping ones innate qualities that makes him or her, a human.

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