Well, it seems they're making some progress with Dani, so the label feral doesn't apply today, but generally if a child is neglected for the first 5 years of their life, with no real human contact, their brains have already developed without he various things that make us human. Those years are the most crucial and almost certainly irreversible. Perhaps Dani started to make a little progress because there was a SLIGHT bit of human involvement. But humans can indeed be feral (wild) thanks to environment conditions, it's not meant as an insult or label, but as a condition.

These two segments are what really made an impact and made me realize just how absolutely tragic the situation was.

"The importance of nurturing has been shown again and again. In the 1960s, psychologist Harry Harlow put groups of infant rhesus monkeys in a room with two artificial mothers. One, made of wire, dispensed food. The other, of terrycloth, extended cradled arms. Though they were starving, the baby monkeys all climbed into the warm cloth arms.

"Primates need comfort even more than they need food," Armstrong said."

"It's said that during the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick II gave a group of infants to some nuns. He told them to take care of the children but never to speak to them. He believed the babies would eventually reveal the true language of God. Instead, they died from the lack of interaction."

It's absolutely heartbreaking. Though I do have the usual biological need to spread my seed and all that, I have to adopt one day.