The few studies of feral children that I am aware of indicate that they were incapable of acquiring language after rescue.  The most well-know case in modern times is that of "Genie," rescued in the early 1970s and treated at UCLA for several years.  She was able to develop a small lexicon, although the average person would find it extremely difficult to understand her utterances, but she never developed anything resembling English syntax.  Summaries of her case are widely available.

James, thank you a lot,

Right, there are not a lot of cases of feral children who wore capable to learn speaking after rescue. In fact, those who wore cappable seem to not learn, but to restart speaking, as they have started speaking before. However, is seems newborns start associating nouns to meaning very early (http://www.jstor.org/stable/41506937?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) and, it seems too, their capacity to pronounce and their capacity for perceptual recognition of the corresponding language phonemes develop correlated (perhaps some causal chain exists) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281707408_Developmental_Change_in_Infants'_Detection_of_Visual_Faces_that_Match_Auditory_Vowels).

So, the questions arise ... what rescued children wore capable to communicate (some wore shifted to type of sighn language), what was its struture in terms of semantics and syntax (if any). Wore they cappable to communicate whith the corresponding animal societies (as far as we can judge this - they wore), but I am not aware of any analysis of this, it is only reported as a fact by rescued chilldren who re-started speaking.

The documented cases can be analysed with regards of time (aquisition phase) parameters, of parameters of the corresponding non-human animal societal and cognitive characteristics...

Too much of unknown.  I can not start by doing a ...table, puting everithing of known arround the cases as parameters and performing a statistical analyses. Perhaps someone has already worked on this and there are more results available?

Thank you again, James, do you have ideas to suggest ?

Velina

Article Developmental Change in Infants' Detection of Visual Faces t...

Hi, Velina!

If you haven't checked out Wikipedia yet, its Feral Child article contains a list of both authentic and spurious reported cases, which might be near-complete, and it's well-supported with references.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

It mentions a general study of reported feral children L'Enigme des enfants-loups: Une certitude biologique mais un déni des archives 1304-1954, by Serge Aroles, available from http://www.publibook.com/librairie/livre-regional.php?isbn=9782748339093&departement=

The list links to various Wikipedia articles on individual cases, including a detailed and excellently researched one on Genie, who, it seems, remains the most closely studied of all cases in terms of behavioural and linguistic ability and development from date of discovery. The studies on Genie by the psycholinguist, Susan Curtiss are probably the most scientifically detailed and informative documentation published on language in the feral child to date. Here are links to two of her publications:

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/curtiss/1978%20-%20Language%20development%20in%20the%20mature%20%28minor%29%20right%20hemisphere.pdf

Curtiss, S. (1977) Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day Wild Child, New York, Academic Press

(Available as e-book from Google Books (below). I've just treated myself to a copy - looking forward to many future discussions with you on this!)

By the way, the first link in your reply to James Williams isn't recognized by JSTOR  - would you be able please to post its citation for us?

Warmest wishes,

Richard

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pSy0BQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:1483217612&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiLkbqejsrJAhWJExoKHV7JAMcQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hi Richard!

Thank you so much! I have checked the Wiki article, yes. They give all these links and described cases. Before I forget - here the first source you are asking about: " Bergelson, E., & Swingley, D. (2012). At 6–9 months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(9), 3253-3258." (You know it.) The link works for me.

I have the same problem as you with the Susan Curtiss UCLA link...

I will absolutely command  "L'Enigme des enfants-loups".

The link you provide to the Susan Curtiss "Genie" is perfect, THANK YOU!

So it seems (till now) nobody did a "table"...  You seem having worked/thought on this?

Wormest wiches, RichT,

Velina

Mechanisms of consequences of social auditory contact:

There must be some (older) work on the ability to sing in birds, e.g. caged birds reared in isolation versus reared with conspecifics?

I presume that deaf children are hampered in speech, e.g. auditory isolation having consequences later in life? 

Marcel, thank you!

Good idea to seee what happens with, "deaf children are hampered in speech, e.g. auditory isolation having consequences later in life?".  I have checked (as far as I could) what happens there. Deaf children (now) learn the corresponding sign language of their country, sign languages are standartised (ISO), deaf children can "speak" often more then one language. (there is a kind of discussion on this here right now: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_anyone_who_would_be_able_to_know_reliable_research_that_shows_deaf_and_HoH_children_being_able_to_be_trilingual?tpr_view=eRdIc1Z3rK8D35Dg3XVywN3AkwC931ewBXMF_3

I found studies about new arising sign languages http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4042080/ that say in big that the sintactic structures emerge arround the signs for entities (nouns) by meamns of let's say "ädding" to them signs for actions... And... an interresting study that shows that even when having not learned a "ISO" sign language, deaf humans create a sign langage for their own use. https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/sign_language_studies/v002/2.3torigoe.pdf

So, as far as can reason... the crussial process is this of conceptualisation and sintactic construction.

You say "There must be some (older) work on the ability to sing in birds, e.g. caged birds reared in isolation versus reared with conspecifics?" What I know is that birds have a mirror neuron system. There are studies on this... But not about what happens if they are isolated and re-introduced to their society.

Hm, it is interresting that Prava, the "Bird Boy" has learned to communicate like and with the births he has been raisen with... "Because she (the mother) never spoke to him, Ms Volskaya explained, the boy's only communication was with the birds he was surrounded by. When you start talking to him, he chirps."  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-521853/First-pictures-bird-boy-raised-pet-communicate-chirping.html)

That is one reason for me to relate the question with animal cognition and language.

Thank you, Marcel, what do you think about all this from the point of view of your domain?

Sincerely,

Velina

You may be interested in a case study I published a few years ago about a deaf girl that I worked with in the UK.  She had grown up in a rural area in Eastern Europe and did not have the opportunity to acquire language, but had a relatively normal upbringing and family life.  Her family moved to the UK and I was called in as the local authorities didn't know how to test her.  My colleague, Dr. Paul Moran, and I were able to carry out some tests before the family decided that they did not want to continue.  Here is the reference and the link:

Moran, P. and Tommerdahl, J.  (2011) A case study of linguistic isolation and questions about subsequent language support and educational provision in the United Kingdom.  LACUS Forum XXXVI. Claremont: LACUS. http://www.lacus.org/volumes/36/216_moran_p.pdf

Jodi, thanks. it is Excellent! I am very interrested in, yes. THANK YOU!

You're very welcome.  Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or comments about the paper.

Thank you, Jodi!

Habituation can also be used to assess infants' learning after birth. Infants will look at something when they are interested and turn to look away when they become bored. So if we show an infant a repeated display of events until he or she looks away and then switch to a new display (which may be only slightly different), we can determine whether the infant noticed the difference. The habituation response has been linked to both attention and language. Studies have shown that young infants who habituate quickly to complex events have greater vocabularies as toddlers than those for whom habituation takes longer

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/112003/chapters/Understanding-Children's-Motivation.aspx

Thank you a lot, Krishnan. The book you suggest is strongly related to my idea. Thank you! Movements, yes... Complex events, absolutely!

Motivation is at the first place in the model I try to build. Motivation to act, to communicate, to express something and/or to share an idea.