Feral children lack the basic
social skills that are normally learned in the process of
enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a
toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright after walking on fours all their life, and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble
learning a human language.
[2] The impaired ability to learn a
natural language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a
critical period for language learning, and taken as evidence in favor of the
critical period hypothesis.
[3]There is little scientific knowledge about feral children. 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
