The Boy Who Lived as a Chicken

Sujit Kumar is nearly 40. He is unable to comprehend language and interact with humans. He cannot use the toilet unassisted and until recently scavenged in the dirt for cigarette butts and cockroaches to eat.

Kumar comes from a background of horrific neglect, abandonment and abuse. Born in Fiji, he was caged with chickens under the house before the age of two. With no human interaction and only chickens for company, he learnt chicken behaviours. He was feral and would scratch and bite if humans came close.

At the age of eight, he was moved to an aged-'care' facility by welfare authorities. He spent the next 22 years tethered to a wall near a mattress covered in his own faeces. He was hosed down from a distance and was beaten. He pecked food from the ground and slept crouched in a roosting position with arms folded into wings.

His parents are dead and his siblings refuse to talk about what they know. No paperwork existed for him and his life was virtually untraceable.

Ex-pat Australian Elizabeth Clayton met Kumar in 2002. The image of him rocking back and forth in his putrid surroundings is etched in her memory.

Clayton was a new Christian and eager to do something to help the community. She quit her career as a furniture exporter. Previously she employed over 100 people. Her life now focuses on one person - Kumar.

Clayton was determined to help Kumar. She rounded up volunteer neurologists, special educators, occupational therapists and behavioural experts. She spent several hours a day attempting to communicate with him and teach him human behaviours.

She battled with Fijian social welfare authorities to finally gain custody of Kumar. Kumar now resides in Clayton's house. Previously he would only cluck like a chicken. He has now developed a range of utterances - grunts, screeches and yelps. He still keeps his arms folded into wings and hands curved like claws. He clucks when he is anxious.

He still does not seem to recognise when he needs to use the toilet. He can now hold a cup and is becoming selective with his food. He can now drink out of a cup and sit in a chair. He has some expressions which include anger (tantrums), jealousy (pushing and shoving) and sentimentality (resting his head on shoulders of others). He now exhibits the cognition of a two-year-old.

Progress has been painfully slow. Kumar requires intensive and constant care. For the first time in his life, Kumar is getting human love from Clayton and his caregivers.

Kumar has mild epilepsy. He now behaves like a young child and will run through a supermarket shrieking while biting his hand. Once in the supermarket a Fijian man strode up to Kumar, extended his palm to his forehead and proclaimed, "In Jesus' name, I rebuke you!"

Clayton admits such episodes are scary. She explains that the man would have been afraid an evil spirit would jump from Kumar into him. Clayton suspects that Kumar's parents locked him up with chickens because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit.

Brain and behavioral specialists are encouraged by Kumar's progress but are skeptical that he will develop language skills.

A series of MRI scans showed Kumar's brain to be structurally normal, but intellectual impairment can't be ruled out. Parts of his brain associated with his epilepsy are smaller. He was hit over the head with a crowbar when he was younger.

The hypothesis is that most of the damage to his development is because of social deprivation. His hearing is very good, but he fails to recognise human language as a means of communication. Kumar pays no attention to voices. Instead his eyes dart around, watching for danger, like a chicken. He looks through people, like they are not there.

Development is a combination of both environment and genes (the nurture versus nature conundrum). Child behaviourists used to say that birth to five years was the most critical period for learning language skills.

Old dogmas about brain development have been replaced with exciting new science of brain plasticity - a regenerative brain. New networks can form in the brain - this has been shown with stroke victims, where the brain can rewire to allow renewed function of a limb.

Kumar's specialists would like to do a functional brain-scan called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). DTI can trace what condition the language pathways in Kumar's brain are in or even if they exist.

But thanks to Clayton's love and a team of specialists and caregivers, Kumar is making remarkable progress. His story is shocking in that such horrific abuse still happens. Incredibly, quality of life can improve from even the most terrible circumstances.