Two-year-old 'Matilda' becomes youngest ever girl in Mensa
By DUNCAN ROBERTSON
21st June 2007
Daily Mail
Her parents knew Georgia Brown was bright. After all, she could count to ten, recognised her colours and was even starting to dabble with French.
But it was only when their bubbly little two-year old, from Aldershot, Hampshire, took an IQ test that her towering intellect was confirmed.
Georgia has become the youngest female member of Mensa after scoring a genius-rated IQ of 152.
Georgia Brown has an official genius-rated IQ - Intelligence Quotient - of 152
This puts her in the same intellectual league, proportionate to her age, as British physicist Stephen Hawking.
According to an expert in gifted children, Georgia is the brightest two-year-old she has ever met.
Parents Martin and Lucy Brown have always regarded their youngest child as a remarkably quick learner.
She was crawling at five months and walking at nine months.
By 14 months, she was getting herself dressed.
"She spoke really early - by 18 months she was having proper conversations," Mrs Brown said.
"She would say, 'Hello I'm Georgia, I'm one'. She was also putting her shoes on and putting them on the right feet."
Georgia was so perceptive that after one outing to the theatre to see Beauty and the Beast she solemnly informed her parents: "I didn't like Gaston (the villain). He was mean and arrogant."
Struck by the similarities between her daughter and Matilda, the title character in the Roald Dahl story about a gifted child, Mrs Brown began to worry about Georgia's future education.
She contacted Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist educational psychologist, for advice.
Professor Freeman applied the standard Stamford-Binet Intelligence Scale test to Georgia and was amazed to find this was too limited to map her creative abilities.
Georgia with her mother Lucy, she is the youngest of five children
She said: "Even at two she was very thoughtful.
"What Georgia did on some questions was of a higher quality than that which was necessary to gain a mark.
"She swept right through it like a hot knife through butter.
"I would ask her things like 'give me two blocks or give me ten blocks' and she would manage it as easily as you would expect a five-year-old.
"In one test I asked her to draw a circle and she did it so perfectly.
"Most adults would struggle to do that. Her circle was near to being perfect.
"It shows she can physically hold a pen well but also that she understands the concept of a circle."
Georgia, who is at nursery school, was also able to tell the difference between pink and purple - a skill which most children learn at primary school age.
Professor Freeman said: "I said to her, 'What a pretty pink skirt, and you have tights and shoes to match'.
"She said, 'They're not pink, they're purple'. Most children go to school aged five and start to learn colours, let alone knowing the difference between pink and purple.
"I have to keep reminding myself that she is only two."
To the amazement of the family, who live in Aldershot, Hampshire, Georgia scored 152 points on the IQ test, putting her in the top 0.2 per cent of the population. Those with an average IQ would score around 100 points in the same test.
Georgia was then invited to join Mensa, the High IQ society whose members have IQs in the top 2 per cent of the population. Georgia is one of only 30 Mensa members under the age of ten.
Mrs Brown, chief executive of a charity, believes Georgia has benefited by growing up as the youngest of five children.
She has been absorbing information from her older brothers and sisters and father, a self-employed carpenter, while not receiving any special treatment.
"There is always someone around to offer her something," her mother said.
"But she still has temper tantrums, like you wouldn't believe, throwing herself on the floor.
"She doesn't think she's better and cleverer than everyone else. She is a very kind and loving child."
Georgia, who has a "wicked sense of humour" is as busy as any toddler, enjoying a schedule of ballet classes, listening to stories, dancing, singing, sport and even watching the TV.
ABOUT MENSA
Mensa is the largest, oldest, and best-known high-IQ society in the world. The organization restricts its membership to people with high testable IQs. Specifically, potential members must score within the top 2% (above the 98th percentile) of any approved standardized intelligence test. Mensa is, formally, made up of national groups plus the umbrella organization Mensa International.
Roland Berrill, an Australianbarrister, and Dr. Lancelot Ware, a British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa in the United Kingdom in 1946. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership being a high IQ.
The original aims were, as they are today, to create a non-political society free from all social distinctions (racial, religious, etc.) The society welcomes all people, regardless of background, whose IQs meet the criteria, with the objective of members enjoying each other's company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.
Mensa accepts individuals who score in the 98th percentile on certain standardised IQ tests, such as the Stanford-Binet. Because different tests are scaled differently, it is not meaningful to compare raw scores between tests, only percentiles. For example, the minimum accepted score on the Stanford-Binet is 132, while for the Cattell it is 148.
In addition to encouraging social interaction among its members, the organization is also involved with programs for gifted children, literacy, and scholarships. The name comes from mensa, the Latin word for "table," and indicates that it is a round-table society of equals (although the logo can be seen as depicting a square table).
The two largest Mensas are American Mensa, with about 50,000 members, and British Mensa, with about 25,500 members.
dailymail.co.uk
By DUNCAN ROBERTSON
21st June 2007
Daily Mail
Her parents knew Georgia Brown was bright. After all, she could count to ten, recognised her colours and was even starting to dabble with French.
But it was only when their bubbly little two-year old, from Aldershot, Hampshire, took an IQ test that her towering intellect was confirmed.
Georgia has become the youngest female member of Mensa after scoring a genius-rated IQ of 152.
Georgia Brown has an official genius-rated IQ - Intelligence Quotient - of 152
This puts her in the same intellectual league, proportionate to her age, as British physicist Stephen Hawking.
According to an expert in gifted children, Georgia is the brightest two-year-old she has ever met.
Parents Martin and Lucy Brown have always regarded their youngest child as a remarkably quick learner.
She was crawling at five months and walking at nine months.
By 14 months, she was getting herself dressed.
"She spoke really early - by 18 months she was having proper conversations," Mrs Brown said.
"She would say, 'Hello I'm Georgia, I'm one'. She was also putting her shoes on and putting them on the right feet."
Georgia was so perceptive that after one outing to the theatre to see Beauty and the Beast she solemnly informed her parents: "I didn't like Gaston (the villain). He was mean and arrogant."
Struck by the similarities between her daughter and Matilda, the title character in the Roald Dahl story about a gifted child, Mrs Brown began to worry about Georgia's future education.
She contacted Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist educational psychologist, for advice.
Professor Freeman applied the standard Stamford-Binet Intelligence Scale test to Georgia and was amazed to find this was too limited to map her creative abilities.
Georgia with her mother Lucy, she is the youngest of five children
She said: "Even at two she was very thoughtful.
"What Georgia did on some questions was of a higher quality than that which was necessary to gain a mark.
"She swept right through it like a hot knife through butter.
"I would ask her things like 'give me two blocks or give me ten blocks' and she would manage it as easily as you would expect a five-year-old.
"In one test I asked her to draw a circle and she did it so perfectly.
"Most adults would struggle to do that. Her circle was near to being perfect.
"It shows she can physically hold a pen well but also that she understands the concept of a circle."
Georgia, who is at nursery school, was also able to tell the difference between pink and purple - a skill which most children learn at primary school age.
Professor Freeman said: "I said to her, 'What a pretty pink skirt, and you have tights and shoes to match'.
"She said, 'They're not pink, they're purple'. Most children go to school aged five and start to learn colours, let alone knowing the difference between pink and purple.
"I have to keep reminding myself that she is only two."
To the amazement of the family, who live in Aldershot, Hampshire, Georgia scored 152 points on the IQ test, putting her in the top 0.2 per cent of the population. Those with an average IQ would score around 100 points in the same test.
Georgia was then invited to join Mensa, the High IQ society whose members have IQs in the top 2 per cent of the population. Georgia is one of only 30 Mensa members under the age of ten.
Mrs Brown, chief executive of a charity, believes Georgia has benefited by growing up as the youngest of five children.
She has been absorbing information from her older brothers and sisters and father, a self-employed carpenter, while not receiving any special treatment.
"There is always someone around to offer her something," her mother said.
"But she still has temper tantrums, like you wouldn't believe, throwing herself on the floor.
"She doesn't think she's better and cleverer than everyone else. She is a very kind and loving child."
Georgia, who has a "wicked sense of humour" is as busy as any toddler, enjoying a schedule of ballet classes, listening to stories, dancing, singing, sport and even watching the TV.
ABOUT MENSA
Mensa is the largest, oldest, and best-known high-IQ society in the world. The organization restricts its membership to people with high testable IQs. Specifically, potential members must score within the top 2% (above the 98th percentile) of any approved standardized intelligence test. Mensa is, formally, made up of national groups plus the umbrella organization Mensa International.
Roland Berrill, an Australianbarrister, and Dr. Lancelot Ware, a British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa in the United Kingdom in 1946. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership being a high IQ.
The original aims were, as they are today, to create a non-political society free from all social distinctions (racial, religious, etc.) The society welcomes all people, regardless of background, whose IQs meet the criteria, with the objective of members enjoying each other's company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.
Mensa accepts individuals who score in the 98th percentile on certain standardised IQ tests, such as the Stanford-Binet. Because different tests are scaled differently, it is not meaningful to compare raw scores between tests, only percentiles. For example, the minimum accepted score on the Stanford-Binet is 132, while for the Cattell it is 148.
In addition to encouraging social interaction among its members, the organization is also involved with programs for gifted children, literacy, and scholarships. The name comes from mensa, the Latin word for "table," and indicates that it is a round-table society of equals (although the logo can be seen as depicting a square table).
The two largest Mensas are American Mensa, with about 50,000 members, and British Mensa, with about 25,500 members.
dailymail.co.uk