HELPING THE WILD BOY OF AVERON

HANDLING ENVIRONMENTAL DEPRIVATION

What was done to help the “ Wild Boy”?

Itard identified five primary goals for his pupil:1. To interest him in social life 2. To improve his awareness of environmental stimuli3. To extend the range of his ideas (e.g. introduce him to games, culture, etc.)4. To teach him to speak5. To teach him to communicate by using symbol systems, such as pictures and written words

Itard had been influenced by the empiricist philosophers John Locke and Etienne Condillac, both of whom advanced the idea that all knowledge comes through the senses. Victor's eyesight and hearing were normal, but his responses to sensory input were often sluggish or nonexistent. For example, he would perk up at the slightest sound of a nutshell cracking, but would not startle at the sound of a gunshot. Itard reasoned that Victor could not learn effectively until he became more attuned to his environment. Therefore, his educational approach relied heavily on sensory-training and stimulation. (Humphrey, 1962; Itard, 1801/1962).Victor improved, but he never approached normalcy. After five years he could read and speak a few words, demonstrated affection for his caretakers, and could carry out simple commands. Itard was disappointed in this lack of progress, but he maintained his environmentalist position, stating that would have been successful if Victor had been a few years younger. (Pinchot, 1948). As it turns out, Philippe Pinel and the other physicians were probably right; modern readers of Itard's personal account usually come to the conclusion that Victor was indeed mentally retarded or autistic (French, 2000; Humphrey, 1962; Pinchot, 1948).

The fact that Itard failed to make Victor "normal" is relatively unimportant to this story. The important thing is that he tried. He was the first physician to declare that an enriched environment could compensate for developmental delays caused by heredity or previous deprivation (French, 2000). Up to this time, it had been assumed that mentally retarded people were uneducable (Humphrey, 1962). As one writer put it, Itard's work with Victor "did away with the paralyzing sense of hopelessness and inertia that had kept the medical profession and everybody else from trying to do anything constructive for mental defectives" (Kanner, 1967).

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