A three-year-old girl from Arizona who taught herself Spanish has been admitted to Mensa, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Alexis Martin, of Queen Creek, was accepted to the prestigious organization -- which requires that all members have an IQ that places them in the top two percent of the world -- after her parents began noticing her unusual intelligence at an early age.
"We'd be driving around in the car and she'd recite her bedtime story from the night before," said Alexis' father, Ian, adding "She didn't just recite them, she recited them exactly."
Her father said she started reading when she was two-years-old and now reads at the fifth grade-level. Her IQ score exceeds 160, making her score 99.9 percent higher than all children her age. The average IQ is 100.
Lisa Van Gemert, gifted youth specialist for American Mensa, said the organization has about 3,500 "young Mensans" under the age of 18 and around 35,000 adults.
According to Edward Amend, a clinical psychologist who evaluates gifted children, early signs of "giftedness" include a large vocabulary, the ability to speak in full sentences instead of a few words, and the ability to teach oneself how to read at an early age.
Amend added that gifted children, like Alexis, usually have longer attention spans.
Additionally, Van Gemert warned against parents "rushing off" to get their children tested for high IQs unless there is substantial evidence.
"If the kids just turns out to be average intelligence or just normal gifted, as opposed to freak show smart, then they feel disappointed and it becomes a contest. That's really unhealthy," Van Gemert said.
