A four-year-old “multilingual math whiz” from Illinois has been accepted into the prestigious Mensa society with his genius IQ.
Zorien Royce of Vernon Hills is not your typical preschooler. He can count to 10 in five languages, reads at a 3rd-grade level and is learning three-digit multiplication and fractions.
His parents, Md Naqib Alam Ansari and Monirupa Ananya, knew their boy was different when he was just two years old.
“We noticed very early when he had a very unusual curiosity, like he was recognizing all the letters, numbers when he was around nine months old,” Zorien’s mother, Ananya, told The Independent.
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Zorien was spelling words such as “hippopotamus” and “alligator” and could count to 100 forward and backward by the age of two, Mensa said in a statement.
Zorien’s parents were referred to a psychologist, who administered an IQ test that got him into Mensa and Intertel, another international high-IQ society. He scored 156 out of 160, placing him in the “profoundly gifted” range.
His psychologist described the result as “awestruck” — noting how rare it is for a child to come so close to maxing out the scale at his age.
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“Shoutout to 4-year-old Zorien Royce, a multilingual math whiz who’s already a member of Mensa,” the society wrote on Instagram Tuesday. “Here’s to brilliant kids who remind us that learning is an adventure!”
He is fluent in English and Bengali and is learning Hindi, Spanish and French. He recently went on ABC 7 Chicago to show off his language skills by counting in all five languages.
When speaking of her son, Ananya didn’t just praise his book smarts, but also how he treats others.
“ He’s a very social person. He is very kind,” she told The Independent.
Ananya said Zorien loves dogs, and if he sees one, he’ll ask its owner questions about their furry friend, such as “What does it do?”
Zorien says the library is his “favorite place in the world” and that he wants to be a Nasa scientist when he grows up, according to Mensa.
Ananya said her boy likes to learn about the planets in the solar system and said his favorite planet right now is Neptune.
But she said, “His interests can evolve at any time.”
“At this point, my focus is to make sure he enjoys his life as a kid, and at the same time, we provide him all the resources … so that he can learn and grow,” she said.
Zorien is currently enrolled at a gifted school in Chicago.
He also attends a math and reading after-school program.
The son of two professionals who immigrated from Kolkata, India, Zorien has strong support from his family, educators, and mentors.
“Our goal isn’t to push him but to give him the right environment,” Ananya said.
“His journey, we hope, inspires other children and families to embrace curiosity and learning with joy.”
