What is mental age? How to use in English

The concept of "mental age" emerged in the late 19th century as a result of the groundbreaking research of Francis Galton and Alfred Binet. Binet, a French psychologist, was tasked by the French government to find a way to identify children who would benefit from additional education to improve their performance in school. Binet and his colleague Théodore Simon developed a series of tests to measure intellectual ability, ranging from simple tasks like naming objects to more complex ones like solving puzzles. Binet observed that children's performance on these tests directly correlated with their age, meaning that their mental ability was consistent with their chronological age. In order to explain this correlation, Binet introduced the term "mental age" in 1905. Just as a person's physical development can be measured in terms of age, Binet argued, so too could intellectual development be quantified through this new metric. Mental age thus became a way to compare a person's intellectual abilities to those of their peers, providing insights into areas where they may need additional support or enrichment. While the concept of mental age has since evolved and been criticized for its limitations and assumptions, Binet's legacy as a pioneer of intelligence testing remains significant, informing modern notions of cognitive function and assessment.