The chimp also outperformed the human when it came to physical tests. Gua imitated adult behaviors, wearing shoes, opening doors using the door handle, and feeding herself with a glass and a spoon. Gua developed, physically, a great deal faster than Donald did. The overall study, called The Ape and the Child, is of more historical than scientific interest. The parents did get a study and a book out of it though, published in 1933: Ultimately, the chimpanzee would never go on to talk but the boy could end up with delayed speech. Donald was supposed to be learning to speak from parents, sibs, and playmates during critical formative years, not from a primate ape. Well, now that the journal authors mention it, if a child is raised with a chimpanzee who is treated as if she were another child, that would interrupt his development. Rachel Nuwer, “This Guy Simultaneously Raised a Chimp and a Baby in Exactly the Same Way to See What Would Happen, Smithsonian Magazine, July 28, 2014 “In short, the language retardation in Donald may have brought an end to the study,” the authors write. Finally, one other possibility comes to mind, the authors point out: While Gua showed no signs of learning human languages, her brother Donald had begun imitating Gua’s chimp noises. Or perhaps it was the fact that Gua was becoming stronger and less manageable, and that the Kelloggs feared she might harm her human brother. It could be that the Kelloggs were simply exhausted from nine months of nonstop parenting and scientific work. Rachel Nuwer writes at Smithsonian Magazine, So there was a natural divergence of abilities. “Little ‘Chimp’ Proves Smarter Than Human Baby After 1 Year”. But early in the second year the child began to use words and phrases quite spontaneously, and to imitate the actions of its elders, in a way the animal never could manage. Raised by the professor and his wife, “Gua was treated, not as an animal pet, but as a member of the family, dressed exactly like the child, nursed and trained in the same way, rewarded, scolded or punished in the same way,” the article said. The experiment was described by Sir Cyril Burt, former professor of psychology at London University in an article for The Family Doctor, the British Medical Association magazine. What happened? Different stories are told: Here’s one from Reuters in 1951: But after nine months, the Kelloggs had to cancel the experiment. It was a confident time for projects like humanizing a baby chimp.
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