A 4-year-old genius girl named Alanna George has become one of the youngest British person to join the organization of people with high IQs – Mensa- after scoring over 98% on his entry test.
Alanna became the second youngest Mensa member with an IQ score of 140 in 2019. Mensa is an organization of intelligent persons across the world. To qualify for Mensa membership, applicants must take an approved intelligence test and score at or above the 98th percentile.
Alanna’s mother, Nadine stated that she has been obsessed with words and numbers and taught herself how to read before even starting school. Alanna said she prefers reciting the alphabet and times tables to singing nursery rhymes.
Before she joined Mensa, Alanna was assessed by a top educational psychologist, Dr. Peter Congdon, who described her as an “intellectual genius”
“It’s exciting and overwhelming. I want to make sure she achieves her potential and manages to perform to the best of her ability. She is so young but she lives and breathes academia. It was a scary realization when we got the results about how clever she is,” Nadine said.
“She is coming on leaps and bounds. She has got an aptitude for reading and can decode words herself,” she added.
Nadine said her daughter uttered her first words at just seven months old and by the time she was 18 months old she was able to speak in full sentences. She added that when Alanna was in nursery, aged three, she could read full paragraphs from some of her favorite story books.
Alannah was always very alert as a child. We never taught her how to read she just did it on her own. She is clearly special but we just don’t know what her potential could be,” she added.
Nadine said unlike the average four-year-old, who might watch Peppa Pig or Dennis The Menace, Alannah likes to watch a show called Endless Numbers on YouTube.
“She reached all of her childhood milestones way ahead of time. She was always very alert and taught herself how to read before she was three. Alannah was my first child but I knew she was passing milestones way earlier than usual,” Nadine said.
“We used to read a lot of story books together and she just picked up reading on her own. She learned herself before even going to school. By the time she was two, she was coming on leaps and bounds. It was the reading that freaked me out a bit, to be honest,” she added.
Nadine said having recognized Alannah’s special talent, she sent her for an assessment with Dr Congdon who made her genius status official.
She said the doctor put her through the rigorous Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence test which tested Alannah’s problem-solving capabilities. Nadine said she was made to answer several questions and was given an IQ score based on her results.
An average age-specific IQ is 100 and typically around 60 percent of the population score between 85 and 115. Alannah scored 140 on the test and it also gave her the reading age of a seven-year-old and the spelling and mental arrhythmia age of a child aged six-and-a-half.
A month after she wrote the tests, Alannah was accepted into the exclusive Mensa club and was recognized as a “gifted and talented child”.
Nadine said she is confident her super-smart daughter has a bright future ahead of her and is determined to support Alaher nah to achieve her potential. Because of how clever Alannah is, her teachers are planning on adapting the school curriculum to meet the standard she is working at.