Social workers in Los Angeles, California take custody of Genie, a girl who had been kept in solitary confinement since her birth. She is initially thought to be severely retarded. Under the care of sociologists and specialists, she quickly develops a sense of hoarding and remains antisocial and nonverbal. After two months, an earthquake causes her to run into the arms of some of the cooks in the kitchen of the hospital whom she had befriended, marking the first time she sought out comfort from another person and the first time she verbalized so profusely. She learns to count, to walk, vocabulary. By seven months of education, doctors predict successful rehabilitation. Only two weeks after she is found, Francois Truffaut’s “The Wild Child” premieres in the US.