One Air Force family has some serious celebrating to do.
Kaleo Kekuewa-Kwon, whose dad is a major stationed at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., has become one of the youngest members to be accepted into Mensa, the world’s oldest and largest society of people with high IQs, at the age of 5.
“We’re just completely just blown away,” Kaleo’s mom, Mailani Kekuewa, told WTOP.
Kaleo’s parents knew from a young age that Kaleo was a bright child – teaching himself the alphabet at 15 months, learning sign language, and counting into the thousands by age 2 – and has always possessed a strong desire to learn.
“In his pre-K class, his teacher (shared) that ‘I was reading to the class one day, and he popped up and said, let me read’,” Kaleo’s dad, Sebastian Kwon, told WTOP. “And he read to the class!”
At 3, Kaleo began piano lessons with his brother and two weeks into the lessons, he could play the opening of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5” and when he got bored with pre-K and Kindergarten workbooks, his parents gave him books meant for first and second graders.
“He just continued to shock us every day with his questions, his curiosity, the things that he would know or want to do,” Kekuewa told the outlet, adding it was then she and her husband began thinking about getting Kaleo’s IQ tested.
When finally tested, the child genius scored in the top 0.01% on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition intelligence test.
“He just tested off the charts,” Kekuewa said of her son.
This fall, Kaleo will attend kindergarten in the D.C. public school system.
“He’s going to have a bright future ahead of him, for sure,” Kwon said.