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Mental Age (MA) is an intelligence test score, expressed in units of chronological age. It's derived by comparing an individual's standardized test score to average scores at various ages.
The idea of "mental age" has lost popularity among psychologists and is sometimes considered outdated. Reasons include it being patronizing to people with intellectual disabilities and potentially being used to deny them autonomy and rights.[1]
How mental age is derived[]
"Mental age" was traditionally determined by comparing a person's standardized test scores to the typical performance of peers their age. For example, if a 10-year-old gets a test score similar to what the average 8-year-old gets, then the 10-year-old is assigned a mental age of 8.
Criticism[]
Louis Leon Thurstone was among prominent critics, stating "the mental age concept is a failure in that it leads to ambiguities and inconsistencies."[2]
The concept also does not include things like adaptive skills, emotional maturity, and other important factors in a person's life. People can be advanced in some areas while lagging behind in others, a concept known as asynchronous development.[3]
Impacts on disabled people[]
"Prejudicial. Overly paternalistic. You lose the complexities of measurement of things like memory, exec functioning, social functioning, and especially ADL functioning as these may all be reasonably good, however, if a mental age is used, everything else is tainted by that, if it is low." Psychologist[1]
Psychologists and disability rights advocates have raised concerns that assigning "mental ages" to disabled people may infantilize them. These assigned labels may be used to restrict the freedoms and rights of disabled people.[4][5] For example, people may argue that adults with Down syndrome should be unable to marry based on the idea that their "mental age" is low.
See also[]
- Developmental age groups
- Intelligence quotient
- Intellectual disability
- Alfred Binet
- Disability rights movement
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rogers, Elaine and McGuire, Brian. Mental age and intellectual disability: Psychologists' perspectives on the use of the term ‘mental age’ as it relates to adults with an intellectual disability.
- ↑ Thurstone LL. The Mental Age Concept. Psychological Review 33 (1926): 268-278.
- ↑ L.K. Silverman, 1997. "Asynchronous development" is now an accepted aspect of maturation. Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 72 Issue 3/4
- ↑ What’s My Age Again: Why Mental Age Theory Hurts People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Disability Wisdom
- ↑ Smith, Ivanova. Mental Age Theory Hurts, Spectrum Life
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