Adolence

• Adult height, weight, and sexual maturity

  • Growth of secondary sexual characteristics
  • Menstrual period for women
  • Peer acceptance
  • Understanding of abstract concepts
  • Growth spurt
• A steady increase in white matter, nerve fibers that connect distant portions of the brain, permits faster information and better communication across hemispheres
• Adolescents move away from their reliance on concrete, real-world stimuli, and develop the capacity for abstract thought
• They can now use symbols to represent other symbols, hidden messages, imagine possibilities, create hypotheses
• Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning


  Methodical, scientific approach to problem solving, and it characterizes formal operations thinking
• Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning


  • Involves ability to develop, consider, and test hypotheses
• Piaget attributed it to a combination of brain maturation and expanding environmental opportunities
• According to David Elkind, the new way of thinking of adolescents, the way they look at themselves and their world, is as unfamiliar to them as their reshaped bodies, and they sometimes feel just awkward in its use
• Adolescents can keep many alternatives in mind at the same time yet may lack effective strategies for choosing them
• Boys are more likely to fail to achieve a baseline of proficiency in reading, mathematics, and science
• Girls do better on verbal tasks that involve writing and language usage
• Boys do better in activities that involve visual and spatial functions helpful in math and science