Los Angeles Toddler Becomes Youngest American Mensa Member

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles toddler Kashe Quest can identify all 50 U.S. states on the map and name the elements on the periodic table by their symbols. She also can count to 100 and is learning to read and learning Spanish and sign language.

With an IQ of 146, the 2-year-old Kashe has become the youngest member of American Mensa, according to FoxLA.com. Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world, and it welcomes people who have scored in the top 2 percent of the general population on a standardized intelligence test. The average IQ in America is 98 to 100.

"Kashe is certainly a remarkable addition to American Mensa," Trevor Mitchell, executive director of the organization, told PEOPLE magazine. "We are proud to have her and to be able to help her and her parents with the unique challenges that gifted youth encounter."

Kashe's mother, Sukhjit Athwal, said her daughter's great memory was one of the first signs of Kashe's intelligence.

"We started to notice her memory was really great," Athwal told FoxLA.com. "She just picked up things really fast, and she was really interested in learning. At about 17, 18 months, she had recognized the alphabet, numbers, colors and shapes."

Athwal said her daughter may be gifted, but Kashe is still a regular 2-year-old.

"At the end of the day, she's in that toddler stage," Athwal said. "So she very much is still a normal 2-year-old where we have negotiations, we have tantrums, we have everything — and it's different because the way we communicate with her, it has to be different because she's able to understand just a little bit more."

Kashe's father, Devon Quest, told ABC that his daughter will wake up Saturday morning and say: "I wanna do elements," or "I wanna do states."

However, Athwal — who has a background in education and childhood development — said she doesn't want to push her daughter to grow up too quickly.

"I think one of the biggest things with me and (my) daughter (is) making sure she has a childhood and we don't force anything on her," Athwal said. "We're kind of going at her pace, and we want to just make sure that she is youthful for as long as she can be."