Meet A 4-Year Old MENSA Member

What were you doing when you were 4?

I think I was battling the forces of evil in our neighborhood cowboy and guns battles.  I could fire a cap-gun pretty darn fast, if I do say so myself.  Or, maybe I was pretending to be Superman or Batman and "saving the world."

Not four-year-old Heidi Hankins from Winchester, England.  She taught herself how to read at a rapid pace, complete basic arithmetic and even draw accurate pictures of people.  Pretty impressed, right?  You should be.  Her latest IQ test gave her a score of 159.

I thought 110 was blockbuster!  I mean, she’s so intelligent, not just for her age but for anyone with a working brain, that she’s been admitted to Mensa, the international high IQ organization.

Her parents, one of whom is a public health lecturer from the University of Southampton, said they always thought their daughter had an extremely high intelligence. At age 2, her father Matthew Hankins said he gave her an entire set of Oxford Reading Tree books, which she finished in an hour.  Good grief.  I couldn't read a flash card at 2.

Just to put her IQ in some perspective, here’s how she stacks up against some of history's smartest people:
• Writer Ralph Waldo Emerson (155)
• Artist Rembrandt van Rijn (155)
• Writer Jonathan Swift (155)
• President John Adams (153)
• Singer Shakira (140)

And despite her extreme level of intelligence, she’s just a regular little girl. She plays with Barbies and Legos just like any other kid.   I don't know, maybe you could coax her into helping your kids with calculus, though.  She's probably mastered that by now.