CAS PS 241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Tabula Rasa, Cognitive Training, Industrial Revolution
14 Dec 2017
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Story of the wild boy of averon, found in winter of 1800 at the age of 12. He could not speak, and walked on all fours. The whole society in that century had gone through a shift (the french society had overthrown the aristocrats). Through this kid, they wanted to show that everyone is equal (to the aristocrats). The boy appeared defective because he was not nurtured enough. Building on rousseau"s ideas, doctor itard sets out to prove than an enriched environment is the key to human development. He gave intensive social, linguistic, and cognitive training to the wild boy (he was taught how to have manners, how to interact ). This teaching went on for about 5 years. He learned to speak and write a bit, but really, with all of the intensive training, he did not acquire all of the things that he was taught. The experiment was a fail, in the end.
