The topic of wild children has fascinated me for several years. Now, to discover that two children were found in Ukraine, living among wild dogs; In addition, it has provided researchers with questions about language development and human psychology.

Victor: the first documented wild child

Victor was an 11-year-old boy found in January 1800 near Saint Sernin sur Rance, in southern France. Victor survived 11 years living in the forest; he crawled on all fours and grabbed food from people’s gardens.

It is believed that since he had no human contact for the first 11 years of his life, he probably acquired the social skills he had from animals. He wore no clothes and his body bore various new and old scars from living in the wild.

When they found him, Victor couldn’t speak human language. Researchers of the time tried to re-socialize Victor with the most appropriate social norms of the time and tried to teach him the language. They made only minimal progress.

Victor lived to be 40, which was probably the average lifespan at that time. He could never be socialized to live the kind of life that most of us would consider normal and healthy. Since Victor’s case, psychologists and sociologists have been very interested in language development in cases of social neglect.

Wild children in modern society

In 1991, an 8-year-old girl was found in Novaya Blagoveschenka, Ukraine. Her name was Oxanna Malaya. At that time she was discovered living in the backyard of her family’s house in a kennel.

She had befriended the dogs in the yard and basically took on their behaviors and actions. He walked on all fours, growled and barked. He would defend the territory in an aggressive display similar to that of an angry dog. He had minimal human language skills, but communicated like his canine companions through animal-like actions.

Also, in Mirny, Ukraine, in 1999, a boy named Edik was discovered. Edik was 4 years old when he was discovered. Edik lived alone in a dilapidated apartment, in a very poor part of Ukraine.

He had wild dogs living in the apartment with him, some say that at one point he had at least three dogs with him.

The researchers believe that it was the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals that strengthened the bond and created the “herd” mentality between the child and the dogs. The dogs found that the child would provide some source of food, no matter how rare; which meant that the dogs didn’t have to hunt. In return, the dogs provided the boy with love and companionship.

What have Oxanna and Edik accomplished today?

Today Oxanna and Edik are not classified as true wild children due to their prior human socialization and the fact that they had some basic language skills from the beginning.

But to this day, his language skills still lag behind his chronological development to this day. Researchers believe that Oxanna’s language skills will always lag behind others her age because she was discovered beyond the age when the brain can regain those skills to full functional capacity.

Edik, on the other hand, has made good progress. His language skills still lag behind other children his own age. But research believes it will be able to recover enough language to function well in society. They believe it is based solely on the fact that it was discovered young enough that the brain can still learn the basic foundations necessary for language development.

Today, Oxanna and Edik live in residences where they interact with other people and staff. Both Oxanna and Edik have dogs in the houses where they live, so they can still enjoy them as pets. They no longer depend on these animals to survive, so their relationship with animals has changed a lot.

Both Oxanna and Edik now walk on two legs, like the rest of us, and wear clothes in a socially appropriate way. It took both months and years to learn these basic social norms. A 2010 update indicates that Oxana is now trying to locate her birth mother and father to learn more about herself.