Boy With Autism the Youngest to Attend Oxford University at Age 6
The young scholar has a dream that one day he’ll become a neurosurgeon. Today, the 13-year-old boy with autism is listed among the top 30 most exceptional people who do something remarkable in society.
Joshua Beckford will become a future doctor, and he states: “I want to change the world.”
Joshua Beckford, the genius child from Tottenham lives with high-functioning autism. He was only six years old when he attended Oxford University. He took courses that were part of an online learning platform for gifted children and earned a certificate for excellence. Now the 13-year-old boy with Autism is listed among the top 30 most exceptional people in the world who have impacted society.
After he took courses in History and Philosophy, he passed them with distinction.
Knox Daniel, the father of Joshua, noticed his son’s uncommon way of learning while he was sitting on the computer. Joshua was just 10 months old back then.
He interacted with the keyboard like he knew all the letters. His father said: “I started telling [Joshua] what the letters on the keyboard were and I realized that he was remembering and could understand. So, if I told him to point to a letter, he could do it… Then we moved on to colors,” he added.
Using phonics, Joshua could read fluently by the age of three. He taught himself how to touch-type on a keyboard before his writing skills appeared, and in the meantime, he learned to speak Japanese.
Beckford stated: “Since the age of four, I was on my dad’s laptop and it had a body simulator where I would pull out organs.”
Daniel found a program at Oxford University in 2011 that targeted gifted children between eight and thirteen years old.
After discovering the program, his father wrote a letter to Oxford, hoping they will allow his son to take the courses, even though Joshua was younger than eight years.
In the end, they were lucky that Joshua had the chance to become the youngest student at Oxford University ever accepted.
Beckford took home-schooled classes, as he was too smart for standard curriculum. The young genius is highly interested in the affairs of Egypt, so now he is writing a children’s book that will explain the ancient and historic nations.
Even though he is attending courses, he serves as the face of the National Autistic Society’s Black and Minority campaign.
His autism isn’t stopping him from helping minority groups to challenge their attempts to achieve their goals.
The little prodigy was named Low-Income Families Education (L.I.F.E) Support Ambassador for Boys Mentoring Advocacy Network in Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and the United Kingdom.
Beckford is also raising money for a few autism charities, including one in the UK and two in Africa, and he’s famous for his campaigns to save the environment. He even wrote a poem named Saving Mother Earth and presented at the TEDx International Conference in Vienna.
Joshua is described as one of the most brilliant boys in the world. He also creates power-point presentations on Human Anatomy at fund-raising events which contain more than 2000 people.
His brain isn’t like any other child his age; it is above most adults. “He doesn’t like children his own age and only likes teenagers and adults,” says Beckford’s father. He adds: “Parenting a child with high-functioning autism comes with its own challenges. [Joshua] doesn’t like loud noises and always walks on his tiptoes and he always eats from the same plate, using the same cutlery, and drinks from the same cup.”
He is very proud to have a son like him and he believes he has a fortunate future ahead. In the end, Joshua adds: “I want to save the earth. I want to change the world and change peoples’ ideas about doing the right things about the earth.”
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