Adolescence
Hormonal Changes in Puberty
• Adolescence
– The transition between childhood and
adulthood.
– The beginning of adolescence is marked by
puberty.
• Girls reach puberty on average 2 yrs earlier than boys
• Growth Hormone and Thryoxine increase around age 8-9
• Sexual maturation is controlled by the sex hormones.
– Both estrogens and androgens are present in each sex, but in
differing amounts.
• Estrogens
– More in girls
– Adrenal estrogens
• A flood of biological events leading to an adultsized body and sexual maturity.
• Androgens
– More in boys
– Testosterone
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004
Sex Differences in
Body Growth in Adolescence
Cephalocaudal growth trend reverses. Hands, legs, and
feet accelerate and then the torso.
Results in long-legged teens with giant feet and hands.
The growth spurt is the 1st outward sign of puberty—rapid
height and weight gain.
Boys
Growth Spurt
Body proportions
Muscle-Fat
Makeup
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Girls
Starts age 12 ½
Starts age 10
Shoulders broaden
Longer legs
Hips broaden
Gain more muscle, aerobic
efficiencybetter athletic
perf. during teen yrs vs. girls
Gain more fat
Sexual Maturation
Primary Sexual
Characteristics
Secondary Sexual
Characteristics
• Maturation of the reproductive
organs (ovaries, uterus, and
vagina/penis, scrotum, and
testes).
• Girls: menarche
• Other visible parts of the
body that signal sexual
maturity.
• Girls: breasts
• Boys: facial hair, voice
– Begins with breast buds and growth
change
spurt.
– First menstruation typically around • Both: underarm and pubic
hair
12 ¾ years.
• Boys: spermarche
– Begins with enlargement of testes.
– First ejaculation typically around 13
years.
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Adolescent Brain Development
Cognitive advances:
• Attention
Strengthen • Planning
Growth &
connections • Integrating
myelination
information
among
speed up
regions
• Self-regulation
Intensifies reactions
More
Neurotransmitter
sensitive to to
response
excitatory
• Stress
changes
messages
• Pleasure, novelty
Pruning
continues
Frontal
lobes
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Adolescent Moodiness
Reactions to Puberty
• Surprise
Girls • More positive
than in past
• Preparation,
information help
•Father’s
involvement helps
• Mixed
reactions
Boys
– Sooner than
• Preparation helps
• Could benefit
from telling people
expected
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Adolescent Emotions
Across the Week
• More negative life events
• Stronger responses
• Moods swings
– Related to daily events
• Difficulties with parents, discipline at school,
breaking up with boyfriend/girlfriend.
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004
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Parent-Child Relationships
During Adolescence
Consequences of
Timing of Puberty
• Rise in conflict between parent and child
Girls
– Psychological distancing to become an adult
– Different views of teen readiness for responsibility
• Most conflict is mild
– Also affection, support
– Usually disagreements tend to focus on day-to-day
matters.
• Driving, dating, curfews, bedroom messiness, etc.
Early
Maturing
• Popular
• Confident,
independent
• Positive body image
• Popular
• Unpopular
• Anxious, talkative,
attention-seeking
• Negative body image
• Sociable, lively. school
Late
Maturing leaders
• Positive body image
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Nutrition in Adolescence
• Calorie needs increase
• Poor food choices common
– Less fruits, vegetables, milk, breakfast
– More soda, fast food
• Iron, vitamin deficiencies
• Eating with family can help
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Boys
• Unpopular, withdrawn,
low confidence
• More deviant behavior
• Negative body image
• More long-term
problems
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Eating Disorders—Anorexia Nervosa
• Starve self, avoid eating and/or exercise strenuously
because of compulsive fear of getting fat
• 15% body fat needed for menstrual cycle so menarche
doesn’t occur or periods stop
• Have extremely high standards for their own behavior
• Excellent, responsible students—ideal daughters
• Overprotective, controlling mothers with high expectations
for appearance, achievement, social acceptance
• Fathers tend to be emotionally distant
• Tx is difficult b/c deny that any problem exists
• Hospitalization can prevent life-threatening malnutrition
• Family therapy, aimed at changing parent-child interaction
and expectations, is the most successful tx
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Eating Disorders—Bulimia Nervosa
• Strict dieting and excessive exercise with binge
eating followed by deliberate vomiting and purging
with laxatives.
• More common than anorexia.
• Often experience their parents as disengaged and
emotionally unavailable rather than controlling.
– May turn to food to compensate for feelings of emptiness resulting
from lack of parental involvement.
• Differ from anorexics in that they usually feel
depressed and guilty about their abnormal eating
habits and are desperate to get help.
• Easier to treat with support groups, nutrition educ.,
revising eating habits and thoughts about food.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004
Prevention Strategies-Teen Pregnancy
•
•
•
•
Sex education
Access to contraceptives
Social competence
A promising future by expanding
education, vocational, and employment
opportunities
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Adolescent Pregnancy Statistics
Teens pregnant each year U.S. - 900,000
(30,000 under age 15)
Canada - about 450,000
Percent of teen
40% - U.S.
pregnancies ended with
50% - Canada
abortion
Percent of teen mothers
85%
who are unmarried
Repeat teen births
20%
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Pregnancy Rates
Among 15- to 19-Year-Olds
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Piaget’s Theory:
Formal Operational Stage
Adolescent Substance Use and Abuse
• Substance use
– Have tried, by grade 10:
• Cigarettes – 40%
• Alcohol – 63%
• Illegal drugs – 38%
– By end of high school:
• 14% smoke regularly
• 28% recent heavy drinking
• 50%+ tried illegal drugs
• Substance abuse
– More antisocial, impulsive acts
– Start earlier
– More likely to be affected by
genetic and environmental
factors
– develop general theory & deduce specific hypotheses
– Task: pendulum problem
What influences the speed with which a pendulum swings?
3. Height of object
4. Force on object
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Deducing hypotheses from a general theory
When
faced with a problem, start with a general theory of all possible
factors that might affect the outcome and deduce from it specific
hypotheses (or predictions) about what might happen. Then test these in
an orderly fashion to see which ones work in the real world.
Starts with possibility and moves to reality while concrete operational
children would start with reality and not be able to identify the options.
I.e. Pendulum problem
Propositional
Thought
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• Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
2. Weight of object
the logic of verbal propositions without referring to
real-world circumstances
Piaget’s Formal operational stage (12+)
1. Length of string
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Evaluating
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Hypotheses
School-aged children tend to be
unsystematic & do not notice all
possibilities
Adolescents vary one factor at a
time while holding others
constant
Information Processing
Improvements in Adolescence
• Attention
– More focus on relevant info/better adapted to changing demands of tasks.
• Inhibition
• Memory strategies
– More effective, improving storage, representation, and retrieval of info.
• Knowledge
– Increases and eases strategy use.
• Metacognition
– Awareness of thought.
– Expands—new, effective strategies for acquiring info and solving problems.
• Cognitive self-regulation
– Better moment-by-moment monitoring, evaluation, and redirection of
thinking.
• Processing capacity
• Speed of thinking.
– Space in working memory is freed so more info can be held at once and
combined into highly efficient, abstract representations.
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Consequences of Abstract Thought
•
Argumentativeness
•
Self-Consciousness & Self-Focusing
– Can be used positively to become more aware of parent values and reasons behind
them.
– Start to think more about themselves.
– Imaginary audience
• Belief that they are the focus of everyone else’s attention and concern.
• Always on stage.
– Sensitivity to public criticism because believe everyone is monitoring their
performance.
– Personal fable
• Because teens think others are observing and thinking about them, they develop an inflated
opinion of their own importance and start to feel they are special and unique.
• When combined with a sensation-seeking personality, seems to contribute to risk taking by
convincing teens of their invulnerability or invincibility.
– Demonstrates perspective taking in thinking about what others think.
•
Idealism and Criticism
– Can imagine alternative family, religious, political, and moral systems and explore them.
•
Planning and Decision Making
School Transitions in
Adolescence
• 6-3-3 (k-6 elementary, 3 year junior
high, and 3 year high schools) vs. 8-4
(k-8 elementary school and 4 year high
school).
• The earlier school transition occurs,
the more negative its impact.
• Grades decline with each transition
– Higher academic standards
– Less supportive teaching-learning
environment
• Lower self esteem
– More with 6–3–3 organization than 8–4
– Girls more than boys—due to the
onset of puberty
– Inexperience
– Overwhelming options
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School Transitions
and Students with Problems
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Helping Adolescents
Adjust to School Transitions
• Parental involvement, monitoring
• Smaller units within schools
• Homeroom teacher
relationships
• Classes with familiar peers
• Minimize competition,
treatment by ability at school
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2004
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Supporting
Academic Achievement
• Child-rearing practices • Peer influences
– Authoritative
– Joint decision making
– Parent-school
partnerships
• School characteristics
– Value high
achievement
• Employment
schedule
– Vocational education
– Classroom learning
experiences
– Teaching
– Tracking
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