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The New York Times

Monday, 15 August 1995

International News – France, Europe (Reuters)

The Bird Child Of Normandy

A female estimated to be 12 or 13 years old has been found in the Forêt de Breteuil area of Normandy, northern France. It is thought that she is Elodie Brun, who was abducted aged two from the nearby town of Le Ferté-Macé and has been missing since 1985.

Lorry driver Marcel Collet spotted the child lying in a ditch as he was driving along the edge of the 20,000-hectare woodlands at 5am Thursday.

‘I thought at first she was roadkill,’ recalls Collet. ‘When I realised it was a little girl I stopped. She was in a bad way. Her feet and legs were bare and bleeding and she was filthy. She seemed very frightened and would not answer my questions. I thought she must have been thrown from a car. It was very surprising, very upsetting, I didn’t know what to do.’

Collet eventually coaxed the child into his lorry so he could take her to hospital in the nearby town of Evreux. ‘My wife had packed some cheese and ham for me,’ he says. ‘That eventually did the trick.’

After two days the child was transferred to L’Hôpital des Enfants in Rouen. ‘It’s an unusual case,’ admits Doctor Bernard Dumas, chief paediatrician. ‘She has been with us for five days and although she appears to be physically well, she has not yet uttered one word.’

Psychiatrist Doctor Cecile Philipe has been monitoring the child closely. ‘We first assumed that her lack of speech was a reaction to some kind of trauma,’ she explains. ‘But it now appears that the child does not recognise human language at all. Instead she tries to communicate by making bird noises. Her range is quite extraordinary – it seems that she has learnt to mimic many different species. When she arrived she was holding a small, wooden bird and became hysterical when we tried to take it from her.’

Despite her lack of speech, the hospital staff have already become fond of their mysterious charge. ‘She’s a lovely kid,’ says Helene Duchamp, head nurse. ‘She’s enchanting. She can become withdrawn and upset sometimes, but often she’s responsive, even affectionate. The noises she makes are fascinating.’

The staff at the hospital call her ‘Little Bird.’

The police investigation continues. If the child is indeed Elodie Brun, the question of where she has been held for the past ten years – and by whom – remains as yet unanswered.

The Sun

14 September 1995

Kidnap girl ‘like wild animal’

As more SICKENING details of the Elodie Brun case emerge, The Sun has learnt that Brun, 12, can only communicate in GRUNTS AND WHISTLES. After 10 years in captivity she is more wild animal than human, experts say. Evil Mathias Bresson, 42, swiped the TRAGIC TOT in 1985 and kept her prisoner in his secret woodland lair. FULL STORY ON PGS 4,5,6,7

Pictured: Deserted foresters’ shack where depraved Bresson trapped Brun for decade.

Science Tomorrow magazine

October 1995

‘Little Bird’ takes flight amid storm of controversy

The extraordinary case of Elodie Brun, the child found in a Normandy forest last month, has taken a new twist that looks set to reignite one of the most fiercely debated issues in cognitive science – how we learn to speak.

The twelve-year-old, nicknamed ‘Little Bird’ due to her astounding ability to mimic birdsong, was abducted in 1985 by Mathias Bresson. A mute since birth, Bresson took the child to a remote hideaway in the heart of the 20,000-hectare Forest de Breteuil, where the two lived for ten years until Bresson’s suicide last month.

Since it emerged that the girl has no knowledge of language, she has been attracting attention from scientists and linguists worldwide. Until now, our knowledge of how the brain acquires language has stemmed largely from theoretical arguments. Experts from Noam Chomsky to Steven Pinker have long debated the extent to which it is innate or learnt and how far is it affected by environment, brain lateralization or other cognitive factors.

No definitive answer has yet been reached because cases of ‘feral’ or ‘isolated’ children – children who have grown up without language – are extremely rare. But, for Elodie Brun, at least, a glimmer of hope has arrived in the shape of Doctor Ingrid Klein, head of cognitive science at New York University. Klein, an acclaimed expert in psycholinguistics and author of three seminal books on the subject, has been granted permission to take Elodie back to her home in Long Island, New York, in what could be one of the most important studies in this field in recent times.

In an exclusive interview, Doctor Klein told Science Tomorrow, ‘Speech is fundamental to what makes us human and I believe I will be successful in teaching Elodie to speak as well as you or I. Although she has led an extraordinary life, she is a happy, healthy and bright child with no evidence of having suffered any physical or emotional damage. My work with Elodie with the help of US government funding and with adequate scientific monitoring will, I hope, prove that not only is it possible to rehabilitate such a child but that she will be able eventually to live a normal life and integrate fully with society.’

The decision to move Elodie so far from her homeland and family has been met with controversy in France, however. But as Elodie’s mother is now unable to care for the child herself she has reportedly given the plan her full approval.

‘This is not just a scientific experiment,’ says Klein. ‘I have Elodie’s mother’s support and I am a mother myself. I believe that the best place for Elodie is in a nurturing environment where she can be helped by experts at the top of their field. That place is with me and my team in the US.’

The notion of the ‘wild child’ has captured the public imagination since the legend of Romulus and Remus. The idea of the uncivilised being taught to function normally in society is the stuff of both myth and romance. However, it’s a sad fact that such cases rarely end well. If an isolated, confined or feral child has not learnt to speak during the so-called ‘Critical Period’ outlined by Lenneberg and supported by most neurologists (see box, left) they will never learn to do so. Once rescued, nearly all such children fail to be successfully integrated into society and remain forever institutionalised.

If Klein is successful her findings will not only mean a happy ending for ‘the bird child of Normandy’, but also significantly increase our understanding of how the human brain acquires language, in what could be one of the most important experiments in cognitive science for some time.