Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence

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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence

• Chapter 11
• Robert S. Feldman

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Growth During Adolescence

• Rapid Pace of Physical and
• Sexual Maturation
• Adolescence
• Growth spurt

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Physical Manifestations of Puberty

• Rapid growth
• Development of primary and secondary sex
  characteristics
• Changes in body composition
• Changes in circulatory and respiratory systems

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Puberty in Girls

• Begins earlier for girls than for boys
• Girls start puberty at around age 11 or 12, and
  boys begin at around age 13 or 14
• Wide variations among individuals
• Influenced by _________________

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Onset of Menarche

• Varies in different parts of world
• Begins later in poorer, developing countries
• Influenced by proportion of fat to muscle in body
• Related to environmental stress

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Puberty in Boys

• Penis and scrotum begin to grow at accelerated
  rate around age 12 and reach adult size about 3
  or 4 years later
• Enlargement of prostate gland and seminal
  vesicles
• Spermarche around age 13

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What is a secular trend?

• Earlier start of puberty is example of
  significant ___________________
• Pattern of change occurring over several
  generations
• Trends occur when physical characteristic changes
  over course of several generations
• Result of better nutrition over centuries

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Onset of Puberty

• Gradual process
• Roles of hormones (Collaer Hines, 1995)
• Organizational
• Activational
• Endocrine system levels of sex hormones
• Feedback loop
• Hypothalamus?pituitary gland?gonads(ovaries and
  testes)

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Adolescent Growth Spurt

• Weight increase
• Skeletal changes
• Accelerated growth spurt
• Asynchronicity in growth

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Gender differences

• Body fat increases faster and accumulates more
  for females
• Differences in strength and physical performance
  related to differences in body fat
• Strength gains related to size and capacity of
  heart and lungs (and tolerance to exercise)

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Timing and Tempo of Puberty

• Variation of timing and tempo great
• No relationship between onset and rate of
  pubertal development
• Some differences causes are inconclusive

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Psychological Impact of Puberty

• Biological changes can have direct impact on
  ____________________
• Biological changes can impact self-image which in
  turn affects behavior
• Biological changes transform appearance which may
  affect reactions of others, especially peers

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Impact of Specific Pubertal Events

• Females
• Menarche
• Positive attitude?gains in social maturity, peer
  prestige, self-esteem
• Negative attitude?greater menstrual discomfort
• Males
• Spermarche
• Little research
• May be related to how culture views masturbation

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Timing of Puberty

• Girls

• Boys

• Early
• Late

• Early
• Late

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Nutrition, Food, and Eating Disorders Fueling
the Growth of Adolescence
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Nutritional Problems in Adolescence

• Poor eating habits
• High consumption of junk food/sugar/fats
• Large portion sizes
• Lack of variety
• Related health concerns

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Pubertal Changes and Eating Disorders

• Obesity
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia

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BMInot BMW!

• What does BMI mean?
• Measure of body fat based on height and weight
  that applies to adult men and women
• Underweight lt18.5
• Normal weight 18.5-24.9
• Overweight 25-29.9
• Obesity 30 or greater

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Obesity

• Ratio of body fat to muscle increases
• Basal metabolism rate decreases
• Overall physical appearance changes
• 20 overweight 5 obese 15 seriously overweight

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Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia

• Definitions
• Anorexiastarvation to maintain low weight
• Bulimiabinge and purge eating
• 1 anorexic and 3 bulimic
• Higher incidence among females
• Disordered eating and body dissatisfaction
  reported across socioeconomic lines

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Adolescent Health

• One of healthiest times in life span
• Relatively low incidence of disabling or chronic
  illness
• Secular trend shows decrease in rates of death
  and disability
• Medical technology has improved health care for
  children and youth

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Adolescent Health
Period of relative great physical risk?new
morbidity and mortality

• Unhealthy behaviors
• Drug use
• Violence
• Self-inflicted and other-inflicted
• Risky activity
• Unprotected sexual intercourse
• Drunken driving

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A No Brainer?????

• Brain changes
• Growth spurts
• No clear 11 correspondence

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Use It or Lose It

• Brain produces oversupply of gray matter during
  adolescence which is later pruned back at rate of
  one to two percent per year

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The Primal Teen

• as the teenage brain is reconfigured, it
  remains more exposed, more easily wounded,
  perhaps much more susceptible to critical and
  long-lasting damage than most parents and
  educators or even most scientists had thought.
• -- (Strauch, 2003)

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How is this related to adolescent impulse control?

• Prefrontal cortex provides for impulse control
• Adolescence prefrontal cortex is biologically
  immature ability to inhibit impulses is not
  fully developed

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Booze It or Lose It!

• Adolescent brain development produces changes in
  regions involving _______________ sensitivity and
  production
• Adolescents may become ______________to effects
  of alcohol
• More drinks required to experience reinforcing
  qualitiesleading to higher alcohol intake
• Alterations in dopamine sensitivity may create
  more sensitivity to stress, leading to further
  alcohol use

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Yawning of the Age of Adolescence

• Sleep Deprivation
• Adolescents go to bed later and get up earlier
• Sleep deprivation takes its toll
• Lower grades
• More depressed
• Greater difficulty controlling their moods
• Greater risk for auto accidents

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Piagetian Perspective

• Fixed sequence of qualitatively different stages
• Fundamentally different than child thinking
• Utilized in variety of settings and situations

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Piagetian Stages Related to Youth Development

• Concrete operations
• 6-11 years
• Mastery of logic
• Development of rational thinking

• Formal operations
• 11 years
• Development of abstract and hypothetical
  reasoning
• Development of propositional logic

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Developmental of Formal Operations

• __________________
• Early adolescence
• Variable usage depends on conditions surrounding
  assessment
• __________________
• Late adolescence
• Consolidated and integrated into general approach
  to reasoning

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PiagetPros and Cons

• Cons
• Fails to prove
• Stage like fashion of cognition
• FO is adolescent cognitive stage
• Fails to account for variability
• Between children
• Within child
• Within specific situations

• Pros
• Catalyst for much research
• Accounts for many changes observed during
  adolescence
• Helps explain
• Developmental differences
• Multidimensionality
• Metacognition

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Information Processing View

• Study of cognitive development in component
  processes
• Incorporates same techniques to understanding
  human reasoning that computer scientists employ
  in writing programs

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Changes in Information Processing

• Gains during adolescence help to explain
  developmental differences in abstract,
  multidimensional, and hypothetical thinking

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Changes

• Include five basic areas
• Attention
• Memory
• Information processing speed
• Organizational strategies
• Metacognition

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Thinking about Thinking

• Metacognition improves during adolescence
• Thinks about own thoughts ?self-consciousness
• Monitors own learning processes more efficiently
• Paces own studying

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Adolescent Egocentrism

• Imaginary audience
• Personal fables
• Assessment methodology

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Socioeconomic Status and School Performance

• Individual Differences in Achievement
• Children living in poverty lack many advantages
• Later school success builds heavily on basic
  skills presumably learned or not learned early in
  school

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Ethnic and Racial Differences in School
Achievement

• Significant achievement differences between
  ethnic and racial groups
• On average, African American and Hispanic
  students tend to perform at lower levels, receive
  lower grades, and score lower on standardized
  tests of achievement than Caucasian students
• Asian American students tend to receive higher
  grades than Caucasian students

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The Downside of Click

• Objectionable material available
• Growing problem of Internet gambling
• Safety
• Digital divide

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Dropping Out of School

• Incidence
• Causes
• Consequences

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Why do adolescents use drugs?

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Why do adolescents start to drink?

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From Activity to Addiction

• Adolescent alcoholics
• Alcohol use becomes uncontrollable habit
• Increasing ability to tolerate alcohol
• Increasing need to drink ever-larger amounts of
  liquor to bring about positive effects craved

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Tobacco The Dangers of Smoking

• Incidence
• Differences
• Gender
• International
• Racial

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Why do adolescents begin to smoke and maintain
the habit?
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Developmental Diversity

• Pushing Smoking to the Less Advantaged
• Tobacco companies carve out new markets by
  turning to least advantaged
• Tobacco companies aggressively recruit adolescent
  smokers abroad

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Sexually Transmitted Infections

• AIDS
• Human papilloma virus (HPV)
• Trichomoniasis
• Genital herpes
• Gonorrhea and syphilis

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