The scientific validity of Patterson's claims about the extent of Koko's language mastery has been widely rejected in linguistic and other specialist circles.
She was born in Chicago and moved with her family to Edina, Minnesota, when she was young, and then to Urbana, Illinois.
Her mother died of cancer when Patterson was a freshman in college and the youngest of her siblings was just five years old.
The foundation was founded with her longtime research colleague Ronald Cohn and Barbara F Hiller[6] in 1978 using monetary support from a Rolex Award.
[7] Patterson is an adjunct professor of psychology at Santa Clara University and a member of the Board of Consultants at the Center for Cross Cultural Communication in Washington, D.C. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Gorilla journal.