Here’s an old article about a feral human from TV New Zealand.
“Chicken boy” learning to be human
A 32-year-old Fijian known as the “chicken boy” is getting help to learn how to live like a human being.
Sunjit Kumar was tied to a bed in a rest home for 20 years after being found in the middle of the road pecking like a chicken.
Kumar’s grandfather had locked him up in a chicken coop after his parents died.
Kumar is now undoing all the behaviour he learnt as a child with help from behavioural expert Elizabeth Clayton.
Clayton is the widow of New Zealander mountaineer Roger Buick who died on Mount Everest six years ago.
She told the Holmes programme that at first Kumar was very violent. “He would bite me and pull me and scratch me, but now he’s showing me a lot of love, so he’s coming along well in his emotional development.”
It is thought Kumar was intitially confined to a room by his father. Later his father was murdered and his mother committed suicide.
He was aged between six and nine years old when his grandfather put him in a chicken pen.
Around 20 years ago Kumar escaped and was taken to a Suva old people’s home by welfare officers.
When he went to the home he exhibited the behaviour imprinted while he was in the chicken pen. This included pecking at food, hopping around, holding his hands in a chicken-like fashion and making the noise like the calling of a chicken.
For years he had to be tied to the bed, but after working with Elizabeth Clayton for 12 months he is improving. He shows no sign of mental illness, is being toilet trained and is no longer pecking at his food. Communication is slowly developing too.
Kumar still lives in the rest home and is a long way from living a normal life.
Feral children grow into feral adults if they’re never treated as humans. Find out more about this story at the wikipedia.
[TV New Zealand: “Chicken Boy” Learning to be Human]
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