Mensa welcomes two-year-old as newest member

GlobalPost

Anthony Popa Urria just became the latest toddler inducted into Mensa. 

Mensa, the "high IQ society," is only open to "persons who have attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test that has been properly administered and supervised."

Urria, from Calgary, Canada, fits the bill with an IQ estimated at 154. 

Urria currently speaks two languages, English and Spanish, and he is working on his Romanian. 

More from GlobalPost: Mensa accepts 4-year-old genius with IQ just below Einstein

His mother Laura Urria told the National Post, her son was very engaged and alert at four-months. By six-months he could recognize letters. “He wasn’t even speaking yet, but my mom would have three flash cards up and she would say, ‘Pick the letter C,’ and he would point to it."

Urria does have some toddler genius competition. One month ago, NBC reported Mensa invited its youngest US member to join its ranks. 

Emmelyn Roettger of Washington D.C was inducted one month shy of her third birthday. Her IQ is estimated at 159, just one point lower than Stephen Hawking. 

In April, Time.com reported Heidi Hankins, from Winchester, England, as another young Mensa inductee. At four-years-old, her IQ topped 160. 

While these toddlers are being celebrated for their genius now, some worry they will be ostracized in the future. Times Colonist writer, Scott Ventureyra, noted the story of William James Sidis in a recent opinion piece. Sidis reportedly had an IQ of 300. 

"Unfortunately, instead of being embraced and treasured for all of his intellectual accomplishments and gifts, Sidis was regarded as an extreme oddity, that of a freak," Ventureyra said. "Eventually, in part because of being under the media's perpetual scrutiny, he end up resigning from his professorship at Rice University and disappearing into obscurity."

More from GlobalPost: Annual $500K MacArthur "genius grants" announced

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