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Four-year-old 'genius' joins Mensa


Still Waters

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A four year old girl with the IQ of a "genius" has been accepted into Mensa - before she has even started school.

Heidi Hankins sat an IQ test after staff at her nursery said she was so intelligent they were struggling to find activities to challenge her.

The average score for an adult is 100 and a "gifted" individual 130 but the exceptional youngster impressed examiners with a staggering 159.

Heidi - who can already add, subtract, draw figures and write in sentences - was reading books for seven year olds when she was just two.

She beats numbers whizz Carol Vorderman (score 154) and is only slightly behind Big Bang scientist Stephen Hawking (160), who are both members of Mensa.

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Dang...I feel pretty stupid right about now. :blink:

*keeps fingers crossed that her baby boy will be a genius too* :geek:

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Not sure if I'd want my kid to be a genius. How do you reprimand a child who is smarter than you are?

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Not sure if I'd want my kid to be a genius. How do you reprimand a child who is smarter than you are?

I don't think it would matter too much. You'd still be mom. In fact a brilliant child might be an excellent self monitor :)

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Not sure if I'd want my kid to be a genius. How do you reprimand a child who is smarter than you are?

Take away their toys. Even genius kids have toys. Or threaten to make them watch Jersey Shore, thus losing precious brain cells. :w00t:

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That is simply amazing!

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I've noticed that these so-called "genius children" all tend to be great at MEMORIZING things but never actually go on to advance anything. Knowledge and intelligence are two very different things. I understand that IQ is only a measurement of potential and I'm not trying to take anything away from this little girl - her teaching herself to read is a fantastic achievement in itself. I hope she goes on to find a cure for cancer or even the motor neuron disease that plagues Stephen Hawking.

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Hawking should have some of his semen frozen so that the girl could inseminate herself with it when she's of appropriate age. Several times. Humanity needs more geniuses.

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I've noticed that these so-called "genius children" all tend to be great at MEMORIZING things but never actually go on to advance anything. Knowledge and intelligence are two very different things. I understand that IQ is only a measurement of potential and I'm not trying to take anything away from this little girl - her teaching herself to read is a fantastic achievement in itself. I hope she goes on to find a cure for cancer or even the motor neuron disease that plagues Stephen Hawking.

Jealousy... tsk tsk Come on she is 4 years old and beat my IQ score.. It means she is quicker than me and others like me.. My score was 134...w00t.gif

IQ's are about speed and being able to think fast when solving questions

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I've noticed that these so-called "genius children" all tend to be great at MEMORIZING things but never actually go on to advance anything. Knowledge and intelligence are two very different things. I understand that IQ is only a measurement of potential and I'm not trying to take anything away from this little girl - her teaching herself to read is a fantastic achievement in itself. I hope she goes on to find a cure for cancer or even the motor neuron disease that plagues Stephen Hawking.

I tend to agree and it's nothing to do with jealousy. My bf's daughter was Valedictorian and goes to a prestigious college in Atlanta and she has a super memory but she lacks social skills greatly. She has always been able to practically memorize everything she reads as does my bf, but she is socially inept. Memorization would greatly help with learning as it would cut out study time greatly.

Just wish the bf could remember to pick his socks up off the floor and put the lid on the toothpaste. *sigh*

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Let her go work at the Large Hadron Collider.

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Not sure if I'd want my kid to be a genius. How do you reprimand a child who is smarter than you are?

Lol, future generations will be smarter, know more so regardless of if ur kid is a genius or not that is the least of your concerns, i know more than my parents lol and they more than theirs

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They need to nurture her in critical thinking skills, so she can solve new problems in the world instead of easily memorizing things. And they need to work extra hard to help her with social skills. Geniuses often have trouble functioning socially, so they should try to teach her while shes young

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cool. maybe she'll do something, maybe she won't.

i remember reading somewhere that nasa used to use iq scores in its recruitment process, but abandoned the practice as it seemed to have no particular correlation to the ability to come up with real solutions to problems. (obviously we're talking within a pool of people who are all well above average smart though)

stephen hawking is a case in point, he's a celebrity to the layperson and it's believed that he has this towering iq score, yet in the physics community he's not considered to have been hugely revolutionary. most don't put him in their top 10 physicists of the 20th century, whereas someone like einstein wasn't brilliant at maths and needed help with it along the way.

anyway, just sayin'.

you want another crazy intelligence story check out kim ung yong. his iq score was just an estimate because the test presented no difficulty to him whatsoever. and there's a guy that at the age of about 8 or something turned down nasa and a glamourous career in physics in favour of becoming a civil engineer and getting a lecturing post at a university near his town. :tu: actually this gives me a lot of respect for the man.

oh for people that are saying high iq kids only know how to memorize- that's nonsense. if you've ever seen a mensa iq test its nothing to do with that at all, in fact there are usually no words, just abstract shapes that you have to put together, and they get more complex and require leaps of comprehension as they go along.

oh, something they fail to mention is that the mensa test is calculated as relative to your age group, it's not a one size fits all thing.

Edited by ad hoc
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Lol, future generations will be smarter, know more so regardless of if ur kid is a genius or not that is the least of your concerns, i know more than my parents lol and they more than theirs

Well once they can alter DNA of unborn children I suppose everyone will be geniuses.

Curious though, what exactly are the circumstances for being born a genius?

I know humans only use a portion of their brain, like 10% from what I remember being told long ago, so are children like her just born with the ability to use a percentage more of their brain or is that an overly simplified hypothesis?

Edited by Socio
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Well once they can alter DNA of unborn children I suppose everyone will be geniuses.

Curious though, what exactly are the circumstances for being born a genius?

I know humans only use a portion of their brain, like 10% from what I remember being told long ago, so are children like her just born with the ability to use a percentage more of their brain or is that an overly simplified hypothesis?

yeah.. in some ways i can't wait til they start doing that. maybe while they're at it they can get rid of a bunch of the animal paranoia fear and anger that leads us to live lives of looking over our shoulder, social strife, tribalism and war. lol.

i listened to a program about the brain the other day and they thoroughly threw out that idea of us only using a small percent as a myth.

basically there are times when it's relatively calm, like when we are sitting doing nothing, but the minute we start talking, and moving, and particularly manipulating things with our hands, the whole thing blazes to life like a city, pretty much all of it is active.

i did read something interesting in one of the science mags a while back tho about there being a correlation between having more short neural connections than long ones, and intelligence.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Man, if only my family was only half as smart as her. . . I'm the only one in my family going to college!

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  • 3 months later...

i knew somebody who was dubbed a "child genious" he could speak several languages fluently at the age of four. but still he has difficulties in finding happiness in his life. that kind of brain is a blessing as much as a burden. a lonelly existance without spontanious decision making and the ability to take risks... ignorance can be bliss ;)

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