2-year-old becomes youngest American Mensa member with an IQ of 146

A Los Angeles toddler has become the youngest American member of the Mensa High IQ society with an impressive IQ of 146. Kashe Quest is just two years old — going on three — and has been found to have an IQ, 46 points above the national average in the U.S., which is 100. "We started to notice her memory was really great. She just picked up things really fast and she was really interested in learning. At about 17, 18 months, she had recognized all the alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes," Sukhjit Athwal, Kashe's mother, told KTTV.

Athwal, who has a background working in education, added that Kashe can also identify all 50 U.S. states by shape and location on a map. The toddler is currently learning Spanish, knows over 50 signs in sign language, can count to 100, can identify elements on the periodic table by their symbols, and has even mastered reading to an extent. "At the end of the day, she's in that toddler stage. So she very much is still a normal two-year-old where we have negotiations, we have tantrums, we have everything and it's different because the way we communicate with her, it has to be different because she's able to understand just a little bit more," said Athwal.  

While Kashe's immense intellectual capabilities open up a world of opportunities, Athwal believes it is important to let the little one lead the way. "I think one of the biggest things with me and [our] daughter, [is] making sure she has a childhood and we don't force anything on her too. We're kind of going at her pace and we want to just make sure that she is youthful for as long as she can be," she said. Athwal revealed that once they'd recognized their daughter's potential, the family struggled to find a daycare or preschool "that catered to what she was able to do." 

Finally, Athwal decided to open up her own preschool, The Modern Schoolhouse, where she teaches a limited number of students at a time to give each the time and attention they need. The California establishment's mission is "to provide children with a unique and safe educational experience, with a strong academic foundation in a diverse setting. We are a nurturing community that focuses on the whole child, emphasizing individuality, by creating confident, self-trusting, and independent leaders through meaningful everyday connections involving strong work ethics, habits, and values."

According to The Hill, Mensa — the largest and oldest high IQ society — was founded in 1946 and currently has roughly 145,000 members from 100 countries around the world. It only admits individuals who score in the top 2 percent of the population and the youngest person to ever join the society is Muhammad Haryz Nadzim from the United Kingdom. Haryz was invited to join Mensa when he was 2 years and 4 months old after scoring 142 on the Stanford-Binet IQ test. "I'm impressed with his achievement and knowing he is happy with what he is doing," Haryz's mother, Nur Anira Asyikin told Good Morning America last year. "He has been tested in fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory which included in the Stanford-Binet IQ test."

As per Mensa International's website, Stanford-Binet and Cattell are the two most well-known IQ tests. The Stanford-Binet test website reveals that the renowned test is the original and first IQ test developed in 1916 by Lewis Terman at Stanford University and was based upon the earlier work of French psychologist Alfred Binet and his student Theodore Simon. A score above 145 on the test is considered "genius or near-genius."