Think your child might be Mensa material? You may have recognised some signs of giftedness but you’re not sure—like how he seems to be achieving all his developmental milestones way past his peers, is able to speak in complete sentences by a very young age, is very observant about the world around him, is curious about how things work and therefore, often asks a lot of questions? Could he also be very focused about completing tasks given to him, displays vivid imagination, abundant creativity and originality and has an amazing memory to boot?
Well, your child could have genius potential and there’s one way to find out for sure. You could test him at the Malaysian Mensa Society, the community for high IQ people, where, if admitted as a member, he could have a stimulating environment connecting with others of the same above-average intelligence, and where he could be cultivated to develop to the best of his potential.
The test would also help you as a parent, to better understand your child’s needs and where his talents can be identified and nurtured in the right academic or learning direction. Simply put, you would then be empowered to know how best to develop him.
Malaysian Mensa Society
The Malaysian Mensa Society is a chapter of Mensa International, a society founded by Roland Berrill and Dr Lanceot Ware in Oxford, England in 1946. They had a vision of creating an alliance of superior minds that could make significant contributions to the betterment of mankind in areas such as education, psychology, ethics and so on. Mensa welcomes anyone whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population.
The Malaysian Mensa was founded in 1984 by Tan Sri Dato’ Yong Poh Kon. The goals of the society are:
- To identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, to encourage research in the nature, characteristics, and use of intelligence, and to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members.
- To conduct research in psychology and in the social sciences, in particular, to send out questionnaires on a wide variety of topics to its members and to publish their results.
- To encourage widespread contacts and friendship among its members through social gatherings, together with meetings, conferences and special interest groups which bring together people with the same interests.
Because Mensa is international and known the world over as the gold standard for measuring intelligence, a Mensa qualification is like an international passport that opens doors and gives you higher regard everywhere you go.
More about Gifted Children’s Admission into the Malaysian Mensa Society
Therefore, if you think you have a gifted child, you could have him tested at the Malaysian Mensa.
Tan Kee Aun, Director of Smaller National Mensas and Acting Gifted Children Coordinator of Mensa Malaysia, says parents of gifted children below the age of 14 can find out more about the tests at Malaysian Mensa Society for Gifted Children while those above the age of 14 can click at this link to see how tests are conducted.
Tan says this IQ Admission Test is required for anyone wishing to join the Malaysian Mensa Society but individuals below 14 years old do not qualify for the test as the measurement data does not cover the age group.
“Instead the tests used for children are more qualitative. Meaning they require a trained psychologist to observe and provide an assessment. Hence we have partnered with several testing centres who not only provide the test but also are able to provide consultation and follow up as needed.
“As a society, we endeavour to complement by providing a platform where members and parents may find a community to be able to lean on. Gifted children will be able to find their community and parents can find peers. It is also not uncommon for parents who have gifted children to also qualify to be members of Mensa after they have taken the Mensa Admission Test.
“Mensa’s policy towards testing is an individual only needs to qualify once. So no re-testing is needed for admission to the society.”
Tan reveals that the youngest Mensa member is four years old, and the oldest is 79 years old! The members come from all walks of life, and not necessarily in the fields of academics or rocket science.
For instance, did you know that Chin Ren-Yi, the co-founder of myBurgerLab, and actress, model-of-the-year Amelia Henderson are both members of Mensa?
How To Tell If You or if Your Child Is A Genius?
But how does a parent know or realise that his or her child has higher-than-average intelligence? What are the signs of superior intelligence in an adult or child? And have people suddenly realised they may be geniuses when they are already in their middle age or adulthood?
Here’s What 2 Parents with Gifted Children Say
Parent 1
On myself: Growing up, I had always been curious about why and how things work. I’m blessed to have access to loads of books and given the opportunity to ask a lot of questions. I remember during my primary years, while others were reading comics, I would be flipping the dictionary to learn new words. The cognitive advantage also afforded me a satisfying postgraduate education and professional career. But the reality is that there were very limited awareness/exposure on giftedness in the 80’s and 90’s, so I really wasn’t sure if I had a high IQ.
In my 40’s now, and out of curiosity, during the lockdown last year, I decided to take the Mensa test and was admitted into the society. The validation kick-started my reading about giftedness and helped me realise the idiosyncrasy of high IQ. For those who find themselves in this position, I definitely encourage you to read up about giftedness vs. talented, overexcitabilities, social and emotional needs of a gifted person through the vast literature available today. This newfound knowledge has helped me realise some of my underlying tendencies (such as perfectionism) and ways to cope with them (allowing myself to make mistakes and not holding too high a bar all the time)
On my child: The main reason for joining Mensa was to seek resources for my youngest child Nathan.
He is 6 years old. From the outset he is not that much different from any other boys of his age. He likes scooting and cycling. He runs and jumps and couldn’t sit still most of the time.
But during the period of online schooling in 2020, he was constantly complaining of being bored at school. We knew he was advanced in his learning, so we started to give him more advanced materials such as year 1-2 mathematics to satisfy his learning needs. By chance, we gave him a box of country facts and flag cards. In just a few weeks, we realised he had memorised all the 196 countries in the world. And in the next few weeks, he could recall all the flags of these countries vividly. Eventually we decided to have an intelligence assessment done at a clinical psychologist and the result showed he has an “extremely high” full scale IQ score.
It’s a feat to satisfy his inquisitiveness. Having intellectual overexcitability means that he asks “why” all the time. He is not satisfied with simple answers and gets bored easily when learning is not stimulating enough.
Gifted children often have asynchronous development. While certain areas of his cognitive development is more advanced than his peer, Nathan is still a child at heart and often needs help to regulate his emotions. Due to his perfectionist nature, at times he is not willing to try new things (unless he thinks he can master those areas), or gets frustrated easily when he gets something wrong. These cognitive and emotional development needs are often not met by the standard education system. As parents we needed to equip ourselves to understand the needs of gifted children, advocate for them and help them to be independent. I will encourage gifted parents to be equipped: read more about giftedness, acknowledge that they are different, be supportive of your child, and join support groups such as Mensa Malaysia Gifted Youth Special Interest Groups.
Parent 2
On our son: We noticed Piersce picks up concepts fast and remembers what he hears and sees at first exposure. He can recite his ABCs from front to back and then back to front, started reading English books, recognised around 300 Chinese words, counted to 100 and counted backwards, do 2 times tables, recognise Ringgits and Euros, and can name the continents on a globe map before 3 years old. He uses big vocabularies and talks like an adult sometimes. He understands deep concepts and never insists we buy him a toy if he knows that it is pricey. When he was 3 years 10 months old, he could count in 10 languages that we taught him in less than a month just for fun, and it was just before and during Chinese New Year (CNY) at that time. It was then that our families were very impressed and my father-in-law suggested that we get him tested. So we did after coming back from CNY and his IQ was found to be extremely superior and was accepted into Mensa.
Currently at 5 years old, Piersce is doing 8-year-old Maths and Chinese (reading). He is a perfectionist and doesn’t like getting things wrong. Realising that may affect his ability to try, we encourage him to treat mistakes as opportunities to learn. He is willing to try now and is enjoying the challenge. When younger, he used to be extremely focused when he is onto something until he completes it, for example a puzzle. He is also very curious and active with lots of energy and never stops touching things to explore. He also asks questions about how things work and lots of “why” this and that all day long ever since he could speak.
He doesn’t sleep in the afternoons nor does he sleep much generally. Recently we let him learn piano play-by-ear just to keep him occupied during the MCO and he could play simple songs that he hears and likes. We also let him learn coding and mobile app design. He goes hiking, scootering and cycling on the weekends and he loves playing Monopoly.
Motherhood Asks More Questions about High Intelligence
1. Motherhood: Is genius IQ linked to a skill or talent? Such as being able to speak in a range of languages, have superb musicianship, paint, invent things etc.?
Tan Kee Aun: High IQ people are innately curious leading to interest in learning things and exploring deeply into a topic or subject. Hence it’s not uncommon for High IQ individuals who might be deeply invested in a few uncommon topics. It is this interest to understand a subject at a deeper level more than others that gives leads to an increased understand and skill of something.
2. Motherhood: Do you think high intelligence is hereditary? Or could this be a “fluke” where parents of normal intelligence suddenly discover their child is exceptional?
Tan Kee Aun: It’s both. There is the nurture vs. nature argument. For some individuals, they may have had the genetic potential but due to environmental reasons like nutrition and upbringing, those individuals never reach their full intellectual potential. It also depends on the parents if they are able to get their children tested to measure their intelligence and after obtaining the results, be able to provide the environment to further develop and build on that capability.
3. Motherhood: What is the IQ score required to be a member of Mensa Malaysia for children below 14, and for adults?
Tan Kee Aun: There is no fixed IQ score as different tests have different scales and standard deviations. Think of it like measuring using inch and cm and feet rulers. The only criteria is the score is in the top 2%.
4. Motherhood: So Mensa accepts all individuals with an IQ in the top 2% of the population. Can you simplify an explanation of “IQ at the top 2% of the population”?
Tan Kee Aun: Imagine having 100 people measure their height. We have 20 people below 150cm, 60 people between 160cm and 210cm, another 18 people 210 – 230cm and the last two people, being the tallest are more than 230cm tall. Those two people are the top two tallest of the group of 100 people. In other words, the top 2%. If we were measuring 1,000 people, then the top 2% would be the 20 people who have the highest height.
5. Motherhood: In what way does the Malaysian Mensa help nurture or serve the gifted?
Tan Kee Aun: The direct benefits to members vary as our studies show that the reasons why members stay as members are vastly different and varied as the members themselves. However, we have found that each and every member stays because they have found something deeply meaningful and deeply personal in the society.
For gifted children, it is about finding a place where you are deeply understood among peers who see and experience life at your mental pace.
Events frequency pre-pandemic would range from weekly to monthly as we have many Special Interest Groups that organise events on their own.
On a national level, we organise monthly meetups, annual gatherings and world conferences. Among them include:
- Forum Of Intelligence (August 14, 2021) – A forum for Parents of Gifted Children to discuss giftedness in youth, and how to support their unique social and emotional needs. This online event features local and international speakers including Dr Keri M. Guilbault, Assistant Professor of Gifted Education at John Hopkins University. (Please click on mensa.my/forum of intelligence if you are interested to attend)
- The Mensa International Board of Directors Meeting
- myStarjobs IQ Testing
- Annual General Meeting
- Year End Bash
Now that we have talked about the Malaysian Mensa Society, who are the Gifted Super Intelligent Children who are members of this society? Watch this space on Motherhood Story to meet them one by one, very soon.