Child geniuses: What happens when they grow up?
“All of my horses are called Athena,” announces Karina. Except for Sandy, that is, a small plastic creature with a wounded leg. Karina places Sandy in a bed she has made from Fuzzy Felt. “There you are, little horse. I’ll give him some special horse medicine,” she says. “Five lots of medicine. Now he’s come back to play with his friends.” Karina is Charlotte Fraser’s only child. They live, the two of them, with Truffles the cat, in Surrey. “As soon as she started talking, it was like this massive word explosion,” Charlotte says. “Everybody she came into contact with would say, my goodness, how old is she?” Charlotte thinks it is “a bit rotten” to compare Karina with friends’ children “because they all develop in their own way and you don’t want to be this competitive mum”. But after a helper at the church creche noticed Karina’s “incredible” imagination, Charlotte found a child psychologist on the internet and, a year ago, took her daughter to London for an IQ test. “Karina has an unus
