Feral (wild) Russian child Oxana Malaya (dog child).MPG

Feral (wild) Russian child Oxana Malaya, abandoned by (alcoholic) parents and reared by dogs

(female narrator)
...was found living in a kennel.

For six years,
her closest companions were dogs.

As she demonstrates 11 years later,
her actions mimicked those of her carers.

For two centuries, wild children
have been the objects of fascinated study.

Raised without love or social interaction,
wild or feral children, pose the question,

'What is it that makes us human?'

Now, as scientists study these children,
they are gaining insights

into how we learn
and what makes us who we are.

[barking]

One of the central questions
in all of science, uh,

that-that has to do with humans is,

'Are we a product of our genes
or are we a product of our experience?'

The old nature/nurture issue.

Feral children tap into this because
they are the natural experiment

that we're not allowed to carry out.

They are the children who go
through extraordinary circumstances,

eh, which no one could naturally create.

(Dr. Bruce Perry)
But, the fascination I think

actually originates
in-in these sort of primal ideas

about the difference
between humans and animals.

(James Law) Part of being a human
is being brought up by humans.

If you are not brought up by humans,
are you completely human?

And I think in some of these cases,
that's the issue that we're dealing with.

[barking]

(narrator) The case of Oxana Malaya
is a key illustration of these issues.

[barking]

The facts behind her story are few.

None the less, Oxana
and other children like her,

have lessons for human development.

Oxana was born in November, 1983.

(female interpreter)
When the baby girl was born,

she weighed 5lbs. 11ozs.

and didn't have any abnormalities.

Either physical or mental.

(narrator) Yet Oxana went on to become
more like a dog than a human being.

[birds chirping]

Her parents were alcoholics.

One night, too drunk to care,
they left their daughter outside.

Looking for warmth, the three year old
crawled into the farm kennel.

She curled up with the mongrel dogs,
that probably saved her life.

(female interpreter) When I was small,
the dogs were breast feeding me like this

and later they brought me,
like when i was bigger,

they brought me what people gave them
and they shared it with me.

I wasn't scared of them at all.

It was my home.

[barking and snarling]

(narrator) A concerned neighbor,
finally reported Oxana's case

to the authorities when the girl was 8.

By then, the effects of her time with dogs

had had serious consequences
for Oxana's development.

[howling]

(female interpreter)
She was more like a little dog,

than a human child.

First of all, she couldn't speak
or she could hardly speak.

And actually the purpose of speaking,
well, she didn't think

it was necessary to speak at all.

(male interpreter)
Children can copy the habits

of creatures around them.

If those creatures are human beings,
they become like human beings.

But, as you know,
she was surrounded by dogs,

so she became more like a dog
than a human being.

(female interpreter)
She used to show her tongue

when she saw water,

and she used to eat with her tongue
and not her hands.

She couldn't understand what a mirror is,

and when she was showed a mirror,
she didn't even recognize herself.

She didn't even look at it.

(narrator)
Oxana's difficulties with language

and selfawareness point to key differences
between humans and animals.

Since Romulus and Remus,

feral children have both
fascinated and horrified.

The process of learning how
to rehabilitate such children,

has been slow and difficult.

Rehabilitating feral children
is fraught with unknowns.

When children live
with minimal contact for too long,

can they ever really
reestablish human connections?

Oxana Malaya is now 20.

She lives in a remote community
in a home for the mentally ill.

In the years since her rescue, doctors
have tried hard to rehabilitate her.

[barking]

When she was found,
she would run about on all fours and bark,

as she shows us.

[howling]

(female interpreter)
My mom wanted to have a boy,

she had a girl instead.

So, she just threw me out
to put me into the kennels.

From then on,
I didn't sleep in the house.

I would just visit in the house
from time-to-time.

But I did sleep in the kennel,
it was my little house.

I do like my parents, but I'm not sure
whether they're my parents or not.

I can't forgive them
for what they did with me.

So, I think that they are not my parents.

(male interpreter)
The only thing we can do,

is try and correct her behavior so that
she gets use to living in a human society.

The best way to do it, is to try and find
a proper occupation for her.

It will focus her mind
from dogs and animals

to some sort of useful occupation.

But, she will never
be considered a normal person.

[music]

(Perry) We are continuing to learn more
and more about how to help these children,

and more and more about how these

neglectful experiences
influence their brain.

But, we're just on the very,
very, very cusp of being able

to be helpful because to date
we haven't done a very good job with that.

We just haven't understood the brain
or brain development in ways

that would allow us
to be as good as we can be,

and I think that that's changing.

[music]

(narrator) Scientists persist
in their efforts to gain insights

into what these children think and feel.

[music]

I really think that inside they're afraid.

They are afraid, in large part,
because the brain-the brain

is this remarkable organ

that's trying to keep us alive,
so it's very conservative,

and any nerual activity,
any sensory input,

any information that's new,

is perceived as potentially threatening
until proven otherwise.

For these children, because they have
not had the experiences

that help their brain organize systems
to make sense of the world,

the world never makes sense.

(narrator)
Feral children show the awful results

of the forbidden experiment.

Efforts to rehabilitate them
have only limited success,

yet they have lessons for us.

Despite the deprivation they have endured,
feral children conceal a spark, that--