Key Points
- Mensa is an international organisation for individuals who have an IQ in the top two per cent of the population.
- Teddy Hobbs, a four-year old boy from southwest England, taught himself to read at the age of two.
- He has become the UK's youngest member.
A British child who taught himself how to read at the age of two has become the UK's youngest member of Mensa, an exclusive global society known for its brain power.
Teddy Hobbs, a four-year-old boy from southwest England, can count to 100 in several languages, including Mandarin.
His mother, Beth Hobbs, said during an interview with the BBC that she first started to notice Teddy's appetite for learning when he said he was only interested in educational programs on television during a COVID-19 lockdown.
"He could count to 100 before he was two, in English. And I just assumed, every child has their own quirk. Each child develops slightly quicker in something else than the other ones. And we just assumed that was his thing and that was fine and that that would be the end of it," she said.
"And then during lockdown obviously ... [he] watched a bit more television than he would do normally... He was adamant he only wanted to watch the educational ones [programs]."
Mensa is an international organisation for high-IQ individuals who attain a score above the 98th percentile of the general population, on Mensa-approved intelligence tests.
Ms Hobbs recalls messaging others in a WhatsApp group asking if their children had similar behaviours.
"The answers came back as no, no, they're not. And so we phoned the health visitor and said, 'look, I think he's teaching himself how to read'."
Teddy gained entry to Mensa at the age of three after completing a Mensa IQ test and scoring of 139 out of 160.
But his parents said they wanted him to have a rounded childhood, the BBC reports.
