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11 year old Earns Guinness World Record for Mental Math

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ASPartOfMe
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01 Jun 2021, 7:13 am

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/girl-autism-earns-guinness-world-record-math-skills-sanaa-hiremath/

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Just because you’ve got “higher math” in your name, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have an aptitude for arithmetic, but for 11-year-old Sanaa Hiremath, numbers are her special gift.

Sanaa, who was diagnosed with autism at age 2, is so proficient at multiplication she recently took home an award from Guinness World Records (GWR) for ‘largest mental arithmetic multiplication problem’.

Her parents learned their daughter was a math whiz when she was just 7 years old. The first time Sanaa was introduced to the concept of multiplication, she grasped it almost immediately.

Yet due to her autism, Sanaa failed Second Grade math at school.

“They tested her on math. They gave her pencil and paper and told her to write one to 20 and she could not because she can’t hold the pencil because she has fine grip, she has poor motor issues,” Sanaa’s father, Uday, explained to Bay News 9, “She was different from the other kids. That was obvious—but what was not obvious was how gifted she was.”

To earn her Guinness World Record, Sanaa was timed while multiplying a dozen randomly generated digits. She completed the daunting task in under 10 minutes.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Sanaa’s gift is that she solves all of her equations strictly in her head. No paper. No pencils. No calculator.

She’s not just being a human calculator, she can actually solve complex problems,” Uday told News 9. “I don’t think she has any limitations… Six digits, seven digits, who knows how many digits. I don’t think she has those limitations.”


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BeaArthur
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01 Jun 2021, 9:15 am

I see a future counting cards at casinos for that kid!


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TomBarclay
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01 Jun 2021, 9:17 pm

She could become the Theoretical physicist that can find the GUT.


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Aspie1
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13 Jun 2021, 7:15 am

I feel more sympathy than admiration for kids like these. Their "gift" is usually a curse to their quality of life.

First of all, these kids are forced to live up to the "gifted" image. Their parents, knowing they're "smart", demand perfect grades in every subject, all for the sake of "yoor fewcher!! !" [sic], along with wanting to keep the bragging rights of having gifted kid. (And good grades are the best evidence of that.) Their peers either make fun of them for being nerds or expect them to get top scores in class every time. Expectations on top of expectations! Second of all, what can the kid actually DO with the damn gift/curse?! Nothing! It doesn't give them extra privileges or freedoms. It doesn't give them a later curfew. It doesn't give them a later bedtime. It doesn't give them extra presents. It doesn't give them extra "yes"'s while grocery shopping with their parents. Basically, it doesn't give them an easier life! :evil:

I was gifted too, although not to this extent. All it got me was feeling suicidal at age 8, and taking up alcohol at 12. Come to think of it, ages 11 to 13 were the worst years of my life! The only saving grace was my parents giving me permission to take city buses by myself as an 8th grade graduation present. Which meant I was forever free from having to beg, plead, and supplicate for months on end just to get them to drive me to a museum or a zoo. The promise of which I could easily lose the night before after waiting for weeks, by doing something as little as getting a C on a math quiz, or refusing the French onion soup they made, or something equally trivial. Or even something totally outside my control, like my parents having a fight and "not feeling like driving me anymore".

I have a cushy government job now. It lets me keep a cozy apartment near a train line, live comfortably, socialize freely during off time, and occasionally treat myself to niceties, including some questionable ones. Only I didn't get the job because I was gifted! I got it because I learned to hustle at interviews and brown-nose a little with important people.