i was watching a national geographic special( i think) talking about these very real children. they discussed those who were raised by wolves/dogs and then one girl that was left in seclusion for thirteen years, in sort of a cruel way it discussed how crucial these kids were in understanding the development of the human brain and how necessary physical interaction is for babies to develop such necessary traits as speech, confidence and other aspects that make us human.

the oldest they found was a thirteen year old girl, her parents kept her in a cage, she was in diapers her entire life and had no clue about anything outside of the tiny room she was kept in. When they rescued her, they were pretty impressed at how quickly she learned to interact with people and her ability to learn vocab, but she could never understand the concept of speech and how to properly use it...she's living in an adult care facility.

a three year old Russian boy they found to be raised by dogs, seems to have been able to successfully make a recovery, while he still has a tendency to revert to dog like behavior, he's now advancing as normal children would.

they then did experiments with baby monkeys, first offering them a soft monkey form or a monkey form with a bottle, but no comforting aspects, the babies chose the comfort over the food every time, here's where the cruel science part is, they raised these monkeys in isolation and discovered that when they were put in a social situation they were confused, frightened and generally unable to function...sort of like they saw demonstrated by the feral children.

what was really startling, as they discussed the traits of these children, i was struck by how like autistic behavior their traits were...

proof that social creatures need social interaction to thrive, and when deprived of that necessary ingredient grow into nothing else but simple beasts that can't develop advanced thought, no matter how clever they demonstrate they are for learning basic knowledge.