Anna

Alice Marie Harris (March 6, 1932 – August 6, 1942), known under the pseudonym Anna, was an American feral child from Pennsylvania who was raised in isolation. She was abused for being an illegitimate child. From the age of five months to six years, she was kept strapped down in the attic of her home, malnourished and unable to speak or move. She was discovered and rescued in 1938, but died at the age of ten before she was able to fully recover from hemorrhagic jaundice. She is often compared to the feral children cases of Isabelle and Genie.

Family Anna was born March 6, 1932, in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania, about outside of Uniontown. She was the second illegitimate child of her mother, Martha, who was 27 at the time of her discovery. Martha lived with her father, David, a widower farmer who strongly disapproved of her indiscretions. David's other children included daughter Catherine and sons Jacob and Harold.

After Anna was found, Martha married a man named George I. Eisenhauer. David died at the age of 72 in 1948. Martha died in Philadelphia in 1959.

Early life Anna was born in a nurse's private home and was brought to the family farm, but shortly after was sent to live at Martha's friend's house. A local minister considered adopting her, but decided against it when he discovered she had vaginitis. After eight weeks in the home, Martha was called to come collect her. In her place, she sent a man and his wife to see her in hopes of adopting her, but the agency refused to give permission because they disapproved of the couple. Later, Martha came herself and gave her to the couple. A short time after, a social worker found her at this home and attempted to convince Martha and David to take her back. At this time, she was over four months old. She was taken to another children's home, where a medical examination revealed she had vaginitis, umbilical hernia, and a skin rash. She was sent to a private foster home after three weeks in the children's home. There is no cited evidence that her condition was linked to her isolation followed by pneumonia. The Fayette County commissioners paid for her funeral and burial in Delaware Cemetery, near the Judge School in Milford where she had last lived.

Comparisons to other cases Isabelle

Anna's case is commonly compared to the study of another feral child named Isabelle, due to similarities in the girls' upbringings. They were both raised in isolation for a similar amount of time, but Isabelle was able to recover much faster and achieve greater mental development.

As soon as a year and a half after her discovery, Isabelle was energetic and fully mobile. By fourteen, she was excelling in public school. The different rates and degrees of recovery between the two girls is suspected to be a result of one of two things. First is that Anna was suspected of having lower mental capabilities from birth, a condition that was exacerbated by her long period of isolation. The other theory is that Anna received a lesser standard of care and verbal training during her recovery as compared to what Isabelle's team of skilled doctors and physiologists offered her. Similarly to Anna, the extent of her isolation prevented her from being exposed to any significant amount of speech or human interaction, and as a result she did not acquire language during her childhood. Her abuse came to the attention of Los Angeles child welfare authorities on November 4, 1970.

Following her discovery, Genie was followed by scientists, physiologists, and linguists. She has lived much longer than Anna and is believed to be 60 or 61 years old (as of 2017), but she has yet to acquire a functional first language. Unlike Anna, psychologists and linguists continue to frequently discuss her to this day, and there is considerable academic and media interest in her development and the research team's methods, since her case has demonstrated the necessity of early language stimulation in the left hemisphere of the brain to start. The discoveries made through her following and scientific testing relate to Anna, explaining that Anna's lack of language stimulation during her isolated childhood are why she was never able to acquire the typical verbal communication skills for a child her age.