英国四岁女童智商堪比物理学家霍金 - By Daniel Miller,12 April 2012
A four-year-old girl has been accepted into Mensa with an IQ almost as high as Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein.
Brainy Heidi Hankins - who hasn't even started school yet - sat an IQ test after staff at her nursery said she was so intelligent they were struggling to find activities to challenge her.
The exceptional youngster impressed examiners with a impressive score of 159. The average score for an adult is 100 and for 'gifted' individuals is 130.
She beats TV mathematician Carol Vorderman (score 154), also a member of Mensa and is only slightly behind Big Bang scientist Stephen Hawking and legendary physicist Albert Einstein both with IQs of160.
A little bit special: Four-year-old Heidi Hankins has an IQ of 159, just one point below Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein
EXCEPTIONAL FROM AN EARLY AGE
At two-years-old Heidi could already:
- Count to 40
- Add and subtract
- Read after teaching herself using the family computer
- Recite the poem The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear
Heidi - who can already add, subtract, draw figures and write in sentences - was reading books for seven year olds when she was just two.
The test she took, is specifically designed fro children her age and contains a mixture of problem-solving puzzles and word games.
Heidi’s father, Matthew, from Winchester, Hants, hopes she can now skip a school year to ensure she is adequately challenged.
The University of Southampton public health lecturer, 46, added: 'We always thought Heidi was bright because she was reading early.
'I was curious about her IQ and the results were off the scale. I got her the complete set of the Oxford Reading Tree books when she was two and she read through the whole set of 30 in about an hour.
'It’s what you would expect a seven-year-old to do.
'She was making noises and trying to talk literally since she was born and by age one her vocabulary was quite good. Now it is really good.
'She was using full sentences almost as soon as she started to speak and then taught herself to read using the computer aged 18 months.
Good company: (L-R) legendary physicist Albert Einstein and Professor Stephen Hawking both have IQs only one point higher than Heidi ay 160 while TV mathematician Carol Vorderman's is 'only' 154
'We noticed how she was using the mouse to navigate and click on buttons that said OK and Cancel.
'She was also drawing princesses and animals aged 14 months, whereas most children her age are drawing blobs or potato people.'
'The other day I gave her mash and fishfingers for dinner - something quite boring - and her response was ‘That’s impressive’, so she has a sense of humour, too.'
He added: 'She is not precocious, she is just a little girl who likes her Barbies and Lego but then you will find her sitting down and reading a book.
'We don't push Heidi at all. She has taken up everything herself and teaches herself.
'In fact, if we try and tell her to sit down and do something she says 'no' and goes off to do her own thing.
'In every other way she is like a typical youngster, who likes to play with other children.
'It is too early to say at the moment where her intelligence will take her but I think she takes after her mother with her artistic skills."
'We are really proud of her.'
John Stevenage, chief executive of British Mensa, said: 'Heidi’s parents correctly identified that she shows great potential.
'We wish them well and are pleased that they have chosen to join the Mensa network for support.'
Mensa said Heidi's IQ is unlikely to change as she gets older.
Mr Hankins and his artist wife Sophy also have a nine-year-old son called Isaac who is a chorister at Winchester Cathedral.