What is the average IQ for a 13-year-old or 14-year-old? The answer is always 100. Learn how age normed tests compare you only to people your own age.
Dr. Russell T. WarneChief Scientist
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The IQ scale is designed so that 100 is the average for every age. This is because IQs are “age normed,” which means that an examinee’s test performance is compared to the performance from a group of other people who are the same age. Because children’s and adolescents’ mental abilities change rapidly (through schooling and maturation), the age groups are one year or less. Adults’ abilities are more stable, and so the norm groups for different ages span 5 years or more.
It is important to remember that IQs make comparisons to others from the person’s age group. This means that the scores have the same interpretation: they measure how far above or below the average of 100 a person is for their age. This relative comparison makes sense for a lot of situations. However, it is not useful for making absolute comparisons of what people know or what they can do with their brain. For example, a 6-year-old with an IQ of 130 is very bright for his age and can reason and solve problems much better than other 6-year-olds. But if the child’s teacher has an IQ of 115, this does not mean that the child is smarter than the teacher. It merely means that -- compared to each one’s peers -- the child outperforms others to a greater extent than the teacher does. With IQ scores, children are not being compared to adults (or vice versa). Indeed, people from any age group are not being compared to people from other age groups.
Watch “The Hidden Problem in Every Classroom: Why Teaching by Age Doesn’t Work” with Karen Rambo-Hernandez on the Riot IQ YouTube channel to understand how age-based comparisons can miss real differences in ability.
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