Adolescence

• Developmental transition between childhood and adulthood entailing major physical, cognitive, and psychosocial changes.

  Adolescence
• Process by which a person attains sexual maturity and the ability to reproduce.

  Puberty
• •Boy's first ejaculation.

  •Occurs at an average age of 13

  Spermarche
• •Girl's first menstruation.

  •Can vary from age 10 to 16½

  •Many studies have indicated that the start of puberty has shifted downward in the twentieth century

  •An example of a secular trend.

  Menarche
• •Organs directly related to reproduction, which enlarge and mature during adolescence.

  -   ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, clitoris, and vagina

  -   testes, penis, scrotum, seminal vesicles, and prostate gland

  Primary Sex Characteristics
• • Physiological signs of sexual maturation that do not involve the sex organs.

  Secondary sex characteristics
• Sharp increase in height and weight that precedes sexual maturity.

  Adolescent growth spurt
• •Continuing myelination in the frontal lobe facilitates information processing.

  •Processing of information about emotions:

           - Limbic and reward systems mature earlier

              - > risky behaviors

          - Older adolescents are more likely to use the frontal lobe, which permits more accurate, reasoned judgment.

  The Adolescent Brain
• •Knowledge is through senses (tasting, seeing, smelling, touching, hearing)

  •Object permanence develops between 4 and 9 months

  Sensorimotor
• •Verbal and egocentric thinking develop

  •Can do mentally what once could only do physically

  •Conservation of shape, number, liquid not yet possible

  Preoperational
• • Conservation of shape, number, liquid are now possible

  •Logic and reasoning develop, but are limited to appearance and what is concretely observed

  Concrete operational
• •Abstract reasoning -principles and ideals develop

  •Systematic problem solving is now possible (no longer just trial and error)

  •Ability to think about and reflect upon one's thinking (metacognition)

  •Scientific reasoning

  Formal operational
• •Piaget's final stage of cognitive development, characterized by the ability to think abstractly.

  •They can use symbols to represent other symbols (math).

  •Can find richer meanings in literature.

  •They can think in terms of what might be, not just what is.

  •They can imagine possibilities and can form and test hypotheses.

  Formal operations
• •ability to develop, consider, and test hypotheses.

  Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
• •adolescents often assume everyone else is thinking about the same thing they are thinking about.

  imaginary audience
• •belief by adolescents that they are special, their experience is unique, and they are not subject to the rules that govern the rest of the world; the belief that the events of one's life are controlled by a mentally constructed autobiography.

  personal fable
• •an adolescent seeks to develop a coherent sense of self, including the role she or he is to play in society.

  Identity versus Identity Confusion
• sustained loyalty, faith, or a sense of belonging to a loved one, friends, or companions; identification with a set of values, an ideology, a religion, a political movement, or an ethnic group.

  Fidelity
• a period of conscious decision making

  Crisis
• •characterized by commitment to choices made following a crisis, a period spent in exploring alternatives.

  Identity Achievement
• •a person who has not spent time considering alternatives is committed to other people's plans for his or her life.

  Foreclosure
• •a person is currently considering alternatives (in crisis) and seems headed for commitment.

  Moratorium
• characterized by absence of commitment and lack of serious consideration of alternatives.

  Identity diffusion
• •a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth.

  Cisgender
• •a term that refers to individuals whose biological sex at birth and gender identity are not the same.

  Transgender
• refers to a wide range of variable identities that may be neither fully male nor fully female

  Genderqueer
• •attracted to persons of the other sex.

  Heterosexual
• •attracted to persons of the same sex.

  Homosexual
• •attracted persons of both sexes.

  Bisexual