The 3-year-old genius: Birmingham toddler passes Mensa admission test
A 3-year-old girl from Birmingham has become a Mensa genius, after scoring in the 99.9th percentile for her age in the admission test - not far below Professor Stephen Hawking's IQ score.
Dayaal Kaur, from Great Barr, could count to 15 when she was just 13 months old and recite the entire alphabet, says her father.
Sarbjit Singh said he realised early on that they were raising a child genius, when he and his daughter could chat before she was even out of nappies.
And, by the time she reached nursery, the manager wrote them a letter saying Dayaal far exceeded any provision they could provide.
Her parents, Sarbjit and Raj, decided to arrange for a Mensa test - and were astounded to find their daughter's intelligence was at the 99.9th percentile for her age and that she had the word recognition and maths abilities of a five-year-old.
What is Mensa?
Mensa is the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organisation, open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test.
The society was founded in England in 1946 by Roland Berrill, a barrister, and Dr Lance Ware, a scientist and lawyer. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership of which was a high IQ. The original aims were, as they are today, to create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions.
The Mensa assessment scored Dayaal's IQ at 142, aged three. The IQ of theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking was 160.
Albert Einstein's IQ is estimated at 160 - although it's thought he wouldn't have taken an IQ test.
Dayaal was offered a place at a private school in Edgbaston at a reduced scholarship fee, following her admission to Mensa. However, Sarbjit says that even with the discount it sadly remains out of their reach.Dayaal has been accepted into their local primary school and Sarbjit is currently pushing for her to be moved up a school year to ensure she is challenged and stimulated in her learning.
"She could recite the alphabet around 14 months and could name all the planets, aged two, and regularly asked us questions we had to Google the answer to!"
"I've always talked to Dayaal in an adult way, not using baby talk and no matter what I said to her she’d understand, from popping something into the bin to going to get a nappy,”“She could follow adult films like The Martian and understand the plot and the funny bits."We’d be in a supermarket and she’d strike up a conversation at the till, asking people about their kids and how old they were. People would turn to me and ask how old she was and I’d say two."
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