Shine OnChild prodigy becomes youngest member of British Mensa at age two
Adam Kirby has an IQ that is reportedly higher than Barack Obama's and
David Cameron's and is four points short of being a genius. Oh, and did we mention he's only two years old?
His parents discovered his rare intellect after he learned to potty train himself by reading a book, despite not being able to speak in full sentences yet, reports the Telegraph.
He enjoys reading books for seven-year-olds and learning French vocabulary, He can spell 100 words, has conquered most of his times tables and can count up to 20 in Spanish and Japanese.
Also see: Teen prodigy heads to McMaster for engineering double major
“We don’t know where he got it from, we both work with figures...but he’s turning into a genius," says his mother Kerry Ann Kirby, 31, who works in financial services. His father Dean, 33, is a software engineer.
After getting him tested, his parents discovered had an IQ score of 141 and was later invited to become the youngest member of British Mensa at two years and five months. This puts him in the top 1.3 per cent of the population.
"We are both bright, but Adam is significantly more advanced at his age than we were," his father tells the Daily Mail.
Adam is being taught at home by his parents, but they fear it will become a difficult to keep him intellectually growing when he enters the school system.
“He gets bored very quickly when he’s not reading or writing or completing a complex puzzle,” his father says.
Also see: Five-year-old is a piano prodigy
As of two years and five months old, here a few other things Adam already knows:
Knows some elements in the periodic table
Recognizes words when spelt them to him (e.g. if his parents spell ‘ninety seven’ he responds 97)
Can write some letters and numbers by hand and type words and numbers on a keyboard
Adam can read simple fractions
Knows months of the year and days of the week, and the planets of the solar system
Knows dozens of pairs of words with opposite meanings
While Adam is currently the youngest British member of Mensa, the youngest British member to ever join the exclusive club was Elise Tan-Roberts, who was just two years and four months when she joined in 2009 with a staggering IQ of 156.
The youngest Canadian Mensa member is a Calgary boy named Anthony Popa-Urria who at two years and nine month, last April, became the country's youngest member with an IQ of 154.
What are your thoughts on child prodigies? What challenges do you think you might encounter raising one of them? Tell us in the comments.
