Adolescent Growth

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Adolescent Growth Development
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• How to understand adolescent development?

Adolescence refers to the stage of human
development encompassing the transition from
childhood to adulthood.
Primary Rule There are no firm rules
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What does an adolescent look like?

• Picture Time!

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How to understand adolescent development?

• Development is variable and ongoing
• Adolescents demonstrate range of strengths and
  weaknesses
• Competencies in some areas, deficits in others
• Development is uneven some 16-year-olds appear
  to be 21, while others appear to be 12
• Despite our preconceptions, adolescents are still
  growing and maturing (e.g., cognitive development)

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How to understand adolescent development?
Development occurs in different domains
concurrently, but not at the same rate

• Physical
• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Social

• Moral
• Spiritual
• Racial/Cultural
• Sexual

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

• 0-2 years Sensorimotor (infancy)
• Recognize existence of world outside themselves
• Interact with world in deliberate ways
• Learn through motor and reflex actions
• Exploration of senses

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget
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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

• 2-6 years Preoperational (pre-school)
• Symbols
• Often fail to distinguish their point of view
  from others
• Here and now
• Confused by causal relations
• Fantasy
• Takes in information and changes it inside mind
  to fit own ideas

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

• 6-12 years Concrete Operational (childhood)
• Carry out mental operations in the presence of
  objects and events being thought about
• Combine, separate, order, transform objects and
  actions
• Think abstractly
• Make rational judgments about concrete or
  observable things

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

• 12-19 years Formal Operational (Adolescence)
• Ability to think systematically about all logical
  relations within a problem
• Interest in abstract ideas and process of
  thinking itself
• Hypothetical and deductive reasoning

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Adults
Teens amygdala (emotional center of brain) gut
reaction)
Executive Function Impulse control Planning Decisi
on making
Physical maturity doesnt matter
http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teen
brain/work/onereason.html
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Adolescence

• Biological
• Development of secondary sex characteristics
• Attainment of adult size
• Social
• Sexual relations
• Shift toward primary responsibility for oneself
• Beginning of responsibility for others
• Behavioral
• Formal operations (systematic thinking)
• Identity formation

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Biology

• Puberty
• Growth spurts
• Brain development
• Sexual development
• Genetic and environmental factors
• Physical exercise, family stress, body image
• Impacts
• Self-reflection
• Comparisons
• Sleeping
• Risk taking
• Depression

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Social

• More time with peers
• Indirect adult guidance
• Dyadic friendships, cliques, crowds
• Intimacy and autonomy
• Similarity
• Risk taking and deviance
• Peer pressure sensitivity peaks at 15
• Were you normal?

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Parents/ Caregivers

• Less time spent together
• Decreasing authority
• Storm and stress
• Control
• Personal space
• Influential
• Authoritative, democratic

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Work

• 1/3 of 16-19 year olds work full time
• More than any other country
• Responsibility and freedom
• Possibly negative
• No training
• No access to supportive adults
• Linked to decreased school achievement

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Another way to categorize things
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Normal Adolescent Development (AACAP, 2005)

• Movement towards independence
• Increased independent functioning
• More cohesive sense of identity
• Examination of inner experiences
• Ability to think ideas through
• Conflict with parents begins to decrease

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Normal Adolescent Development (AACAP, 2005)

• Movement towards independence
• Increased ability for delayed gratification and
  compromise
• Increased emotional stability
• Increased concern for others
• Increased self-reliance
• Peer relationships important and take an
  appropriate place among other interests

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Normal Adolescent Development (AACAP, 2005)

• Future Interests and Cognitive Changes
• Work habits become more defined
• Increased concern for the future
• More importance is placed on one's role in life
• Sexuality
• Feelings of love and passion
• Development of more serious relationships
• Firmer sense of sexual identity
• Increased capacity for tender and sensual love

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Normal Adolescent Development (AACAP, 2005)

• Morals, Values, and Self-Direction
• Greater capacity for setting goals
• Interest in moral reasoning
• Capacity to use insight
• Increased emphasis on personal dignity and
  self-esteem
• Social and cultural traditions regain some of
  their previous importance

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When things go wrong

• Regression
• Somatic manifestations
• Bodily concerns, aches and pains, illness
• Behavioral difficulties, acting out
• Delinquency, substance use,unsafe sex
• School difficulties, failure
• Emotional difficulties

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Some issues

• Suicide
• 16-17 year olds are in the highest risk category
• Rates of suicide attempts have doubled in recent
  years.
• Substance abuse is high
• Sexual experimentation begins
• Destructive behavior can develop
• Omnipotence and Invulnerability are the rule
• This results in an inability to link drinking
  with auto accidents or drinking with pregnancy or
  STDs

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Still Another Way
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Early Adolescence(12-14)

• Rapid Growth
• Confused by changes
• Curious about final outcome
• Personal interest in their own development
• Rebellion against home
• Acts in way that looks to be considerable
  maturity and in the next moment babyishness

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Early Adolescence(12-14)

• Absorption with close friends of same age and
  gender
• Moodiness
• Sloppiness and Disorder
• Establishment of independence of self Who am I?
• Body-conscious
• Strong desire to conform to and be accepted by
  peer group
• Appearance of Sexual Maturity
• Skin problems

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Early Adolescence(12-14)

• Constantly hungry (more than in younger years)
• Companionship at meals and after school snacks
  provide dining pleasures
• Sleeps more than during younger years
• Sleepy at getting up times
• Wants to sit up at nights as sign of increasing
  maturity
• Clash between physiology and culture

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Early Adolescence(12-14)Special Characteristics
of Boys

• Boisterous
• Clumsy
• Secretive, clams up especially around adults or
  at home
• Aggressive
• Dirty-cant seem to get him near the bathroom
• Gain more weight and height than girls
• Much talk about sex and girls
• Out of house more

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Early Adolescence (12-14)Special Characteristics
of Girls

• Vague and diffuse
• Crush on older men
• Interested in romantic love
• Playacting
• Talkative, but not communicative
• Giggly!

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Early Adolescence Sexuality

• Boys express their sexuality through masturbation
• Same-gender sexual encounters are relatively
  common
• These occur frequently enough to be considered as
  a variant of normal sexual development
• Questions that adolescents have about erotic
  feelings or behaviors toward the same sex need to
  be addressed directly and fully.
• It is not helpfulto just saythis is no more
  then a passing phase.

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Middle Adolescence (15-16)

• Greatest experimental, risk taking time
• Drinking, drugs, smoking and sexual
  experimentation are often highest interest during
  the 14-16 years olds
• Peer groups gradually give way to one-on-one
  friendships and romances
• Peer groups tends to be gender-mixed
• Dating begins
• Less conformity and more tolerance of individual
  differences
• Omnipotence and Invulnerability are the rule
• This results in an inability to link drinking
  with auto accidents or drinking with pregnancy or
  STDs

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Middle Adolescence (15-16)

• Striving for independence and autonomy is greatly
  increased
• Parental conflicts occur which need confrontation
  and resolution (these are normal and necessary)
• Adolescents confide in each other
• Sexual development results in unpredictable
  surges in sexual drive
• Often accompanied by sexual fantasies
• Sexuality is a MAJOR preoccupation of the middle
  adolescent

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Middle Adolescence (15-16)

• Sexual activity occurs more frequently among boys
  than girls
• Testosterone increases are found in both boys and
  girls but much more abundant in boys
• Higher testosterone levels in boys may result in
  greater sexual drives, sexual aggressiveness and
  more purely physical gratifications
• Girls at this age tend to view sexual
  gratification as secondary to fulfillment of
  other needs such as love, affection, self-esteem
  and reassurance

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Late Adolescence (17-18)

• Rebellious
• Concerned with personal appearance (cant get
  them out of the bathroom)
• Moody
• Interest in the opposite gender
• Establishment of ego identity-where do I fit
  into the world
• Growth finally subsided
• Full stature almost attained
• Sleep requirements approaching adult level

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Late Adolescence(17-18)

• Food requirement approaching adult level
• Companionship when eating
• Intimate relation with friend fades
• Greater interest in opposite gender
• Needs acceptance by society, in job and in
  college
• Needs parental respect for opinion and acceptance
  of maturity

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Late Adolescence(17-18)

• Who am I as a vocational being?
• Work opportunities during these years allow
  exploration of tentative career choices
• A choice of vocation reinforces the adolescents
  self-concept and is important to identify
  formation

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Late Adolescence (17-18)Factors Influencing
vocational choice

• Family values
• Social class
• Socioeconomic conditions
• Need for prestige
• Vocational Independence
• Special Abilities
• Motivation

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Late Adolescence (17-18)Special Characteristics
of Boys

• Interest in plans for career
• Sexual interest prominent and demanding
• Less interested than girls in mate seeking

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Late Adolescence (17-18)Special Characteristics
of Girls

• Interest in boys, now directed towards mate
  seeking
• Absorbed in fantasies of romantic love
• Less interested than boys in plans for career
• Sexual interest less demanding than in boys