Are learned and innate the only types of behaviors?

Feral child - Wikipedia

quote:

---

Children with some human experience before isolation are more easily rehabilitated after discovery. Children who learn an alternative, animal culture, especially during the first 5 or 6 years of life, find it almost impossible to learn human language, to walk or engage meaningfully with other humans - even after intensive and loving care for years - see Amala and Kamala - which demonstrates what many child developmental experts and psychologists have been arguing: that early years in child development are absolutely crucial.

​

Legendary and fictional feral children are often depicted as growing up with relatively normal human intelligence and skills and an innate sense of culture or civilization, coupled with a healthy dose of survival instincts; their integration into human society is made to seem relatively easy. In reality, feral children lack the basic social skills which 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 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. The subject is treated with a certain amount of realism in Franois Truffaut's 1970 film L'Enfant Sauvage (UK: The Wild Boy, US: The Wild Child), where a scientist's efforts in trying to rehabilitate a feral boy meet with great difficulty.

---

Quite a list of documented cases.Growing up in an environment where people walk and talk is different from growing up in an environment where animals commonly use 4 limbs, have limited vocal ability and few necessary social skills.Wonder if there are any examples of wild mixing of species that don't involve humans (like we see with dogs & cats brought up together, and llamas brought up with sheep, etc), and how much that affects their development.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : ...

---

Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

I agree with you here, the evidence of feral children (see Message 172) shows that this is a real concern for children up to ~6 years of age, for proper development to what we would recognize as human behavior. Curiously this also appears to be near the horizon for easy learning of foreign languages.This means that there is some nerve\brain\sensory development that is not fully complete in humans until this age barrier is passed, and that it needs some minimal level of stimulation to develop "normally" for humans.Another criteria I have seen is that it takes until about 11 years old for a child to be able to be independent enough to develop on their own into a "normal" adult human (what we recognize as human).Enjoy.

---

Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.