Two-year-old Isla McNabb becomes Mensa's youngest member, in top 1% on IQ test

A two-year-old girl, named Isla McNabb from Crestwood, Kentucky, US has become the youngest member of high-IQ society Mensa. The wild has scored the 99th percentile of intelligence for her age, according to Spectrum News. The girl’s intelligence first began to show through her “affinity for the alphabet,” her mother was quoted as saying by the outlet.

The child’s family says that their daughter taught herself to read without much assistance. She knows almost every word that one can throw her way. In one such instant they recalled that when their 2 year old child was taken to the paediatrician, rather than just memorising words, she was able to read as well, surprising everyone. The child has memorised over 500 words, but the family stopped counting after she reached 200.

“She has always had an affinity for the alphabet, so we got her all kinds of blocks and magnets - multiple copies of the alphabet - and I would notice that the cat would have the letter C next to it and then I would have the letter M,” Amanda was quoted as saying. The father of the child, Jason McNabb, who is also a member of Mensa, told Fox19 that when his daughter’s paediatrician “asked if she was memorising a lot of words, at which point we took her to a poster on the wall and Isla read every word on the poster.”

Isla scored in the top 1% of the population on an IQ test aged just two and a half 😳

— Guinness World Records (@GWR) November 27, 2023

2 year old girl scribbled the word ‘mom’ in crayon

The 2 year old girl was also noticed scribbling the word “mom” in crayon by her mother, that rendered the latter astonished. The family captured the moment in a security camera. They then attempted to seek help from a child psychologist. “We had suspicions that Isla may be gifted since she was an infant, but she began developing her reading and writing skills rapidly after turning two, and then it was evident that was had something special going on,” Amanda was quoted as saying. After the testing Isla’s father came to know that his that his daughter “scored superior in everything and very superior in the knowledge category.”

“It definitely shocked us. We didn’t expect that,“ he reportedly said. The family is proud of their child becoming the youngest member of Mensa, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. Isla is now the youngest member in the high IQ organisation. “It’s not always easy being the smartest person in the room, especially for young kids,” Mensa’s Charles Brown told the broadcaster. “They don’t often fit nicely into the educational system, and we recognise that. And so we have certain resources we offer to kids and their parents,” he added.