Teddy Hobbs,4,UK’s youngest member of Mensa
Teddy Hobbs has become the UK’s youngest member of Mensa. The child prodigy from Portishead (Somerset) can already count to 100 in six non-native languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish, and German.
Teddy Hobbs managed to gain entry to the exclusive club for the intellectual ‘elite’ aged just three years and nine months.
Teddy’s mother’s thoughts
Beth Hobbs, 31, said he learned to read when he was just 26 months old “by watching children’s television and copying the sounds of letters”.
“He started tracing the letters and so when we sent him back to nursery after COVID lockdown we told them we thought he’d taught himself how to read,” The erudite boy’s mother added.
“He was playing on his tablet, making these sounds that I just didn’t recognize, and I asked him what it was, and he said, ‘Mummy, I’m counting in Mandarin,’” she added.
The brainy boy is now capable of reading Harry Potter books when his parents allow him.
Mensa: world’s largest and oldest high-IQ society
The couple approached Mensa, the world’s largest and oldest high-IQ society, which is open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a particular test.
Mensa does not assess children under the age of 10, but if parents want their kids tested they have to go through an educational psychologist.
Teddy was 3 years and seven months old when he took the test, according to the sources.
“I was worried about him being able to sit in front of a laptop for an hour, but he absolutely loved it,” Beth Hobbs said.
Teddy Hobbs IQ score
The Stanford-Binet IQ test revealed that Teddy who had the letter and word recognition of a child of about 9 years old scored 139 and was in the 99.5th percentile for his age.
“We’re not sure how he ended up this way, my husband and I are not linguists — so we always joke that the embryologist must have slipped a needle or something to make him this way,” the boy’s mother said.
“Everyone we have spoken to has been fabulous because it’s been really hard to find any support, but we have no idea why he is so clever,” she continued.
“He doesn’t currently qualify for autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder diagnoses — and because he’s just so far ahead it’s hard to get help for him with his learning at that age,” Hobbs added.
The brainy boy’s mother “goes through phases and recently started learning all the different flags of the countries around the world. But more recently he’s gotten into play dough, which is great,” said.
“All we want for Teddy is to be a good person and be happy with life. That’s all any parent would wish for,” The brilliant boy’s mother added.
