Examines the case of "Genie," a girl whose parents kept her locked in a bedroom in total isolation, until she was discovered in 1970 at age 13. At first, her rehabilitation seemed to be an opportunity to test hypotheses of language acquisition, but disputes about the nature of her disabilities, the intensity of her therapy, and the progress of government funded research turned Genie's case into a sad example of the ethical quandaries of research on human subjects.