In 1970, a girl who became known as “Genie” was admitted to a children’s hospital in Los Angeles. She was thirteen years old and had spent most of her lift tied to a chair in a small closed room. Her father was intolerant of any kind of noise and had beaten her whenever she made a sound as a child. There had been no radio or television, and Genie’s only other human contact was with her mother who was forbidden to spend more than a few minutes with the child to feed her. Genie had spent her whole life in a state of physical, sensory, social and emotional deprivation.