COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• -          recent study of more than 3,000 Swedish adolescents revealed that sexual intercourse before age 14.

   
• -          a recent study found that early sexual debut (first sexual intercourse before age 13) was associated with sexual risk taking, substance use, violent victimization, and suicidal thoughts/attempts in both sexual minority (in this study, gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents) and heterosexual youth.
• Ø  ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY - creates health risks for both the baby and the mother, Infants born to adolescent mothers are more likely to have low birth weights—a prominent factor in infant mortality—as well as neurological problems and childhood illness.

   
• Ø  NUTRITION – adolescents virtually like on fast-food meals which are high in fat.

   

  Ø  EXERCISE – researchers have found that individuals become less active as they reach and progress through adolescence.
• Ø  SLEEP - reasons given are those involving electronic media, caffeine, and changes in the brain coupled with early school start times.

   

  Ø  LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH IN ADOLESCENCE - unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide.
• Ø  THE ROLES OF DEVELOPMENT, PARENTS, PEERS, AND EDUCATION - Positive relationships with parents and others can reduce adolescents’ drug use. Researchers have found that parental monitoring is linked with a lower incidence of drug use.
• Ø  ANOREXIA NERVOSA - involves the relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation.

  Ø  BULIMIA NERVOSA - which the individual consistently follows a binge-and-purge pattern.
• Ø  HYPOTHETICAL-DEDUCTIVE REASONING

  -          increased tendency to think about thought itself. One adolescent commented, “I began thinking about why I was thinking what I was. Then I began thinking about why I was thinking about what I was thinking about what I was.”
• Ø  ADOLESCENT EGOCENTRISM

  -          heightened self-consciousness of adolescents.
• -          According to David Elkind (1976) adolescent egocentrism has two key components:
• ·         IMAGINARY AUDIENCE - that others are as interested in them as they themselves are, as well as attention-getting behavior—attempts to be noticed, visible, and “on stage.”