All parents think their kids are smart. We marvel at every little thing they do. Most of us turn out with average intelligence, however. Recently, though, some parents were spot on when they thought their kid was the smartest, she was even inducted into Mensa.
A toddler from Crestwood, Kentucky has just become the youngest member of Mensa and is in the top 1% of the smartest people in the world.
Isla McNabb, at just two years old, was going around the house, naming objects with her toy letters, reports the Washington Post. “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,” Isla’s mother said.
Her parents then found the word “mom” written in crayon on a cardboard box. “I noticed that on the box it said ‘mom,’ so I asked my husband, ‘was it you? Have you been working with her?’ He said no, I didn’t do this,” Amanda McNabb recalled. “So I went back and looked at the security camera footage of the living room and sure enough saw her with the crayon writing mom.”
Amanda and Jason McNabb decided to take Isla to a psychiatrist who said children as young as Isla usually aren’t IQ tested but went ahead and tested her anyway because of the things her parents described. “Dr. Amend was saying typically these kids will have asynchronized development so they might be really far ahead, really advanced in one category and might be fairly normal or on par or maybe lag behind in some other categories,” Jason McNabb said. “She scored superior in everything and very superior in the knowledge category, so it definitely shocked us. We didn’t expect that.”
Isla’s parents say she is just like a normal two-year-old in other ways, however, saying she’s still having trouble with potty training. “She led us down a very interesting path, but we just let her take the reins and see where it goes from there,” Jason McNabb said. “Hopefully it will lead to a scholarship—maybe Harvard or MIT one day.”
Isla isn’t the first toddler to be inducted into the group. In 2019, Zayn Riyas of Frisco, Texas, became a member at 2 years and 11 months old. And last year, 2-year-old Kashe Quest of California joined Mensa.
Have you seen the a baby wooly mammoth just discovered in the Yukon?
Those are some pretty smart toddlers! At least regular parents can feel better knowing that Isla’s parents are still having trouble potty training her. Have you ever had your IQ tested? What about your kids?
