The 4-Year-Old Human Calculator

What is it like to be a genius? A lot of us wonder how the mind of a child prodigy works. Meet Jeeva Jandu, a 4-year-old Human Calculator and British Mensa’s youngest member with an IQ of 160+ having the same range as that of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Mensa is the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. Amazingly, a four-year-old child has become a member of this prestigious society.

Image: Guardian

Like any other child, Jeeva loves playing around and learning new things. She says, “I like reading books & learning about things in the world and how they work.” She began impressing her parents when she was still a baby. At seven months, she started sounding out simple words like “cat” and “grandma.” At 11 months, she finished reading bedtime stories, sometimes from memory and sometimes by recognizing words; she was already reading independently by the time she was 15 months old. Now she has been reading books aimed for 5- to 8-year-olds. She also has the comprehension and mathematical ability of a child twice her age.

Being highly smart might just be running through Jeeva’s blood. Her mother, Malveen, is a dentist and has always been academically great, gaining 10 As at GCSE and now studying for a postgraduate degree in orthodontics, while her father, an actuary, has a postgraduate distinction in actuarial science and is now studying wealth management. Not only that, Jeeva also has an older cousin in Mensa.

Malveen says, “Jeeva is chatty and sociable. Most of her babyhood she was the only child in her age group who could talk. She would often say that she wished the other kids could also talk like her so that she could have more friends.”

While being sociable, she could also read well for her age. Jeeva’s teachers at her private pre-school loves listening to her read in front of the class because she was the only one who could read fluently. She says, “No one else can read the words that I’m saying.” That makes her stand out more from her classmates. Aside from academics, she also excels in other activities such as learning chess and coding, as well as gymnastics, which she says, “I love dancing! It makes me happy to jump and twirl around.”

Image: Guardian

At her young age, she’s already doing so much in her life. Her mind is very explorative as her parents observe that a simple conversation might lead to topics about outer space, how the blood pumps and circulates the body, and many more. “She’s very interesting and unique,” her parents add.

“Our main thing is that she feels happy and fulfilled, because that isn’t always the case when chasing perfection. We model failure for her, making mistakes in front of her. We ask each day what her successes were, and what she failed at, and celebrate both.”

Written by: Mic Villamayor, IFY Books