This three-year-old has IQ higher than Einstein!
She has an IQ more than Einstein's and thus has been inducted in the high-IQ society Mensa. However, unlike Einstein, she is no scientist, but a cute little munchkin, all of three years! Resident of a small market town in England, the toddler's first word was 'hiya', when she was just 8-months-old. "It really went from there," said her mother Natalie Morgan-Dew.
"She remembers events that happened before she was even 1-year-old"
In the coming months, Ophelia picked up things real fast, and started "saying colors, letters, numbers quite early on compared to most children." Within 2 years, she was able to recite the alphabets. She even "remembers events that happened before she was 12 months old!" When Ophelia showed potential way ahead than her peers in the Abacus 2000 Nursery School, her parents decided something.
Say what! While Einstein's IQ is 160, Ophelia's is 171!
They took her to child psychologist, Joan Freeman, in London, some 3 hours away from their Ross-on-Wye residence. "Joan specializes in gifted children," who made Ophelia take the Stanford-Binet test, the popular IQ test that focuses on five abilities: Fluid Reasoning, Knowledge, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual-Spatial Processing, and Working Memory. While average score of people of Ophelia's age is 100, hers was a stunning 171!
"We just wanted to clarify how we could help her"
Eventually she joined Mensa, which accepts people who've attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test. In there, Ophelia "is in the top 0.03 percent for her age." When asked why they chose to consult a psychologist, the father Ben Dew, IT support worker, said, "We just wanted to clarify how we could help her."
"We did not want her to feel under-stimulated"
Natalie quickly added that they are not pushy parents, but "we didn't want her to feel under-stimulated." "I would be proud of Ophelia no matter what she did, as long as she's happy and healthy," she said. Lyn Kendall, a child consultant for British Mensa, said it's appreciable that despite having a gifted child, Ben and Natalie are ensuring she enjoys her childhood.
'Some parents are pushy. Glad Natalie and Ben aren't so'
"Some parents are pushy-something I strongly oppose. They give their children high-energy foods, special juices. Their days are timetabled. I've parents ring me up and say, 'at 18:30 we've intellectual conversation'," Kendall says, adding, 'You just think, 'When do they have time to be children?'"
'She's like any other three-year-old, but loves intellectual stuff'
So, how is Ophelia at home? "Very much like any other three-year-old," says Natalie. She loves playing with her cousins, jumping in puddles, running around - normal things that a child of her age enjoys. At the same time, she comes up with ideas, and talks like a 19-year-old, says Ben. "She loves working on numbers and reading books with me or Ben."
