She may not yet have been alive for even ten years, but Adhara P¨Śrez is already well on her way to a lifetime of success in whatever career she chooses.
That's because this 8-year-old Mexico City Native is probably smarter than most scientists known to man.
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According to recent reports, P¨Śrez has an intelligence quotient of 162, a score higher even than the estimated 160 of iconic minds like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. However, it's not been easy for her thus far at all.
Apparently P¨Śrez was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when she was just three years old, according to the Yucatan Times. On the autism spectrum, it's a developmental disorder that makes it harder for a person to have social interactions and to use nonverbal communication. However, like some other forms of autism, it can also result in repetitive behaviours patterns and interests. Which means that kids with Asperger's often develop insanely good capabilities for specific things like playing the piano, or athletics, purely because they will throw absolutely all of their attention into it.
However P¨Śrez says her condition wasn't very well accepted by kids at her school. Her fellow students bullied her and "made a mockery" of her. "I saw that Adhara was playing in a little house and they locked her up. And they started to chant: 'Oddball, weirdo!'" her mother, Nallely Sanchez, told the outlet. "And then they started hitting the little house. So I said, I don't want her to suffer."
Image courtesy: Yucatan Times
Apparently the bullying sent P¨Śrez spiralling into a deep depression, her mother says, with her not wanting to go to school, sleeping in class when she was sent in, and taking no interest whatsoever.
Luckily, Sanchez put together that her daughter's behaviour in school was incongruous with how smart she knew she was while at home. She realized the traditional school education was no good for P¨Śrez, and decided to take her to therapy. That's when P¨Śrez's massive IQ was identified, allowing her to speed along her education and enter a higher learning environment more suited to her.?
Through all of this, P¨Śrez finished elementary school by the age of five. After that, she breezed through middle school within the next year, and even completed high school by age 8. Now, she's reportedly in the process of earning two online degrees simultaneously, one in industrial engineering in mathematics and the other in systems engineering.
P¨Śrez has even written a book about her experiences, the title of which translates to 'Don't Give Up', and she's since appeared in Forbes Mexico's 100 Most Powerful Women in Mexico list.?
Image courtesy: Heraldo Mexico
She isn't happy just writing a book that could help kids like her though. P¨Śrez is also developing a new smart bracelet that can help monitor the emotions of differently-abled children. That way parents and caregivers can anticipate seizures and emotional outbursts, and help keep the child safe and comforted.
In the future though, she hopes to get to the United States and answer the entrance exams for the University of Arizona, her dream school, which is why P¨Śrez is currently working on learning English. And who knows, maybe one day we'll see her name leading the world's astrophysicists, or medical researchers, or something even better.