'Studies have shown that under certain circumstances children can recover from even severe privation' Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis stated that a child who is

  In the case of Genie, she spent most of her childhood locked in a room at her home. She was found in 1970 when she was 13 ½ . She had not been fed adequately, could not stand and had no social skills. She was given education and assistant. Her language railed to reach normal adult levels and her social skills remained limited i.e she did not fully recover.

  This is different however, to Kolvchova who studied identical twins who had spent the first seven years of their lives locked in a cellar. They were barely able to talk. They were adopted at the age of 9 by a pair of loving sisters. By the age of 14 their behaviour was normal and at 20 they were above average intelligence. The twins recovered fully.

  Freud and Dann’s evidence supports that of Kolvchova, and could explain why the twins recovered and Genie did not. They provided evidence that young children can avoid the severe damage resulting from privation by forming strong attachments with other children. They studied 6 way orphans in concentration camps. They had lived in segregation and had limited contact other than with each other. They were liberated by British soldiers. As time went by the 6 children became attached to their adult carers. Also they developed rapidly at a social level and in their use of language.

  A problem, however with all these studies is that we cannot be certain whether the children were attached to someone during the earlier years. For example in the case of the Koluchova twins, even though they clearly experience privation after being locked in a cupboard, they did not have each other- and they did recover reasonably well. Those individuals, such as Genie, who were truly isolated, did not recover, but we cannot know whether or not they were normal from the beginning.

 The conclusions is that most of the adverse effects of maternal deprivation or privation can be reversed and that children are more resilient that Bowlby believed, Clarke and Clarke note that early experience is very much related to what happens later on.