Talk:Mental age

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This talk page is for discussion on how to improve the Mental age article.
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Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing

I have posted a bibliography of Intelligence Citations for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research and to suggest new sources to me by comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mental age and IQ

The article says: For a gifted child, the mental age is above the chronological age; for a developmentally retarded child, the mental age is below the chronological age.
Yes, the source says: "If the mental age is below the chronological age (a developmentally retarded child), then the I.Q. is below 100." Because, by definition, almost half of all children will get a score below 100, (almost half get a score above, a few get exactly 100 and almost half get a score below), this would mean that almost half of the children are developmentally retarded. This is obsolete thinking! So my proposal is to remove this sentence. Lova Falk talk 18:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed (not by me though) Lova Falk talk 07:52, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see that this article still needs a lot more work. I'll have to plunge in with more edits in a while. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:38, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is entirely medically, legally and philosophically accurate. Law, for example, is written at a Grade 8 level. We don't tell people this because we don't want the lawyers to realize that they're literally just about 13 years old. Most people are mentally 6-12 years old regardless of chronological age. There's just no use to making this fact public because it's not like we're going to take the mentally retarded people's capacity to vote, drive, contract, etc. away. If things like reading a statute or other legal document are difficult, it's a sign of mental retardation, but there's no treatment, and in this instance there is still much of the "why tell the patient he has terminal cancer? Just give him morphine and let him go home and die." Doctors used to do that, they're not allowed anymore, they have to inform the patient he has cancer. They don't, however, have any requirement to inform their patients about their mental age. If someone is employed as a lawyer and is "25 years old," what do we gain by telling him his mental age is actually 13 because he believes in systems of hierarchy and violence? I mean, that is the other issue, law only exists to manage mentally retarded people, normally developed people fight, they don't use law, law suggests you are inferior to your opponent and you have to beg someone else to do your execution for you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7A3C:9100:E815:88E4:7EB7:34D4 (talk) 05:36, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Second Paragraph

However, mental age varies according to what kind of intelligence is measured. A child's intellectual age can be average for his physical age but the same child's emotional intelligence can be immature for his physical age. In this psychologists often remark girls are more emotionally mature than boys in the tween years. Also a six-year-old child intellectually gifted in Piaget terms, can remain a three-year-old child in terms of emotional maturity.[2] Mental age is considered a controversial concept.[3]

This whole paragraph is poorly worded and uses poor grammar and make's the author's point really unclear. The author finally gets around to his/her point in the last sentence and reveals that this is maybe better suited for a section named "Controversy" rather than being the second paragraph in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.34.196.233 (talk) 01:36, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial

It's odd to say "Mental age was once considered a controversial concept." It's still a controversial concept, this page's controversy section touches on that. Waitalie Nat (talk) 19:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Something is wrong here.

I don't thing that an average 50yo person scores better on the IQ tests than an average 25yo person. However, according to the formula, if a 50yo person obtains the same score as an average 25yo person then their IQ is 50, right? But IQ 50 means moderate mental retardation. 85.193.228.103 (talk) 14:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The original formula you refer to was the ratio of the "mental age" (in months) to the chronological age, multiplied by 100. An older person was expected to have a higher mental age than a younger person, as evidenced by responding to more test items correctly. Theoretically a person whose intelligence was exactly in the middle of the average range would have an IQ of 100 regardless of age. The formula had a lot of problems, however, because of the lack of precision in the test. Today the formula is a moot point as it is no longer used. As the article explains it has been replaced by the deviation IQ, which is much more sophisticated statistically and psychometrically. Sundayclose (talk) 15:11, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mental Age calculation

The mental age calculation cannot possibly be correct. I am 58 and have an engineering degree. My IQ was measured at 142. I can tell you there is no way that a typical 82 year old will somehow magically come to know the same engineering principles as I, just by virtue of age. Seriously. I can tell you from personal experience with some of my intelligent classmates who have gone on to get PhD's and become surgeons (I know 'original research' and 'anecdotal evidence' is not scholarly), that someone with an IQ of 130 is not simply 1.3 times as smart as a person with an IQ of 100. It's an exponential relation. After about 40 years, I'd say a person with an IQ of 130 will seem to know about 10,000 to 100,000 times as many factoids as a person with an IQ of 100, not simply 30% more. The average 35 year old with IQ of 100 will not be able to calculate how many bags of tanbark will be required to cover an area 2" deep. The average 35 year old with IQ of 140 will be able to use calculus to derive the equation for gravitational binding energy, and that is not just "40% harder".

2600:1700:4CA1:3C80:DC1E:6E92:21F1:E441 (talk) 17:59, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Eu

Que aconteça um acidente e que eu participe e botem a cupa toda em mim 138.185.239.154 (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]