Adolescence and Puberty

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Adolescence and Puberty

• I. Section One
• Adolescent Issues
• Physical Issues
• Social Issues
• Psychological Issues
• II. Section Two
• Puberty
• Kohlberg and Gilligan

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Adolescent Physical Issues

• Physical Development
• Growth is on average grow 2-3
• inches a year.
• Average height at age 11
• Girls 4 feet, 10 inches
• Boys 4 feet, 9 ½ inches
• In America we receive enough nutrition and thus
  grow at a natural rate.
• In many countries a lack of proper nutrition
  greatly affects the maturational process.

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Adolescent Physical Issues

• Childhood Obesity
• Defined
• Body weight that is more than 20 above the
  average for a person of a given age and height.
• United States
• 15 of U.S. children are obese.
• This has tripled from 5 since the 1960s.
• Most obese country in the world. Why?
• We are in no short supply of resources.
• Speed of our economy.
• No time anymore to make a good meal.
• Both parents working.

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Adolescent Physical IssuesMotor Development

• Are there extreme differences between boys and
  girls in motor abilities?
• Do boys out perform girls in sports?
• Are boys better designed for this
• type of activity?
• Truth
• There are little if any physical differences
  between boys and girls in ability to excel at
  physical activities.
• Testosterone does not make a difference at this
  age.
• Why would research in the past say one thing and
  now today it say a different thing?
• In the past it was not expected of girls and
  girls were told that they would fail if they
  tried.
• Today it is normal and expected for them to
  participate in physical activity.
• If a person is told that they will fail all the
  time they will most likely fail.

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Adolescent Physical IssuesMotor Development

• Children have more dexterity today than we ever
  did
• They can now type on a computer and use a
  pen/pencil efficiently, with skill
• Children today are more excelled at this task
  today than we ever were. Why is this?
• Video games and internet?

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Adolescent Physical IssuesPhysical Health

• Children in this age group are more likely to get
  sick.
• Continues through high school but not as strong
  there.
• Asthma
• Chronic condition characterized by periodic
  attacks of
• Wheezing
• Coughing
• Shortness of breath
• Has been on the rise.
• Affects more than 15 million U.S. children.
• Potential Reasons
• Increased pollution
• More insulated buildings today
• Air cant flow well
• Increased ability to detect it
• Increased concern over illness in children

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Adolescent Physical IssuesPhysical Health

• Accidents
• Not a common source of
• mortality in this age group.
• Increased mobility increase
• their chances of being in an accident.
• Bicycle and auto Accidents
• Most frequent of accidents causing death in
  children at this age.
• Kills 5 out of every 100,000 children.
• Fires, burns, drowning, and gun-related deaths
  follow in frequency.
• Not many children in this age group die from
  accidents, nonetheless they get in many accidents.

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Adolescent Social IssuesSocial Problems

• Anorexia Nervosa
• Individuals refuse to eat.
• While denying that their behavior
• and appearance are out of the ordinary.
• Social issue.
• Advertisements and commercials.
• Bulimia
• Characterized by binges on large quantities of
  food.
• Followed by purges of the food through vomiting.
• Or the use of laxatives.
• Personal Issue.
• Must be treated by looking at their life
• What is out of control?

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Adolescent Social IssuesSocial Problems

• Depression
• State of intense sadness, melancholia or despair.
• That has advanced to the point of being
  disruptive to an individual's social functioning
  and/or activities of daily living.
• More than ¼ of adolescents report
• feeling depressed for more than two
• weeks at a time.
• 2/3 of adolescents report having
• felt depressed.
• 3 report major depression.
• Adolescent Girls experience depression more often
  than boys.
• African-American adolescents have higher rates of
  depression than Caucasian adolescents.
• Native Americans have high rates of depression.

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Adolescent Social IssuesSocial Problems

• Suicide
• Willful act of killing oneself.
• Rate of adolescent suicide has
• tripled in the last 30 years.
• There is one teenage suicide
• every 90 minutes.
• Parents are not reluctant to report it as a
  suicide as opposed to an accident anymore.
• Suicide rate is higher for boys than girls
• Boys use more violent methods than girls

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Adolescent Social IssuesSocial Aspects

• Adolescent Egocentrism
• State of self-absorption in which the world is
  viewed from ones own point of view.
• Imaginary Audience
• Adolescents belief that his or her own behavior
  is a primary focus of others attentions and
  concerns.
• Personal Fables
• View held by some adolescents that what happens
  to them is unique, exceptional, and shared by no
  one else.

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Adolescent Social IssuesSocial Aspects

• Average dropout makes 42 less than high school
  graduate.
• Unemployment rate for dropouts is 50.
• 50 of high school seniors and 20 of eighth
  graders used THC within the past year.

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Adolescent Social IssuesSocial and Peer Groups

• Reference Groups
• Groups of people with whom one compares oneself.
• Cliques
• Groups from 2 to 12 people
• whose members have frequent
• social interactions.
• Crowds
• Larger groups than cliques, composed of
  individuals who share particular characteristics
  but who may not interact with one another.
• Sex Cleavage
• Sex segregation in which boys interact primarily
  with boys and girls primarily with girls.

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Adolescent Social IssuesAdolescent Identity

• James Marcia
• Suggested that identity can be seen in terms of
  which of two characteristics
• Crisis or Commitment
• Is it present or Absent
• Crisis
• Period of identity development in which an
  adolescent consciously chooses between various
  alternatives and makes decisions.
• Commitment
• Psychological investment in a course of action or
  an ideology.

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Adolescent Social IssuesAdolescent Identity

• Marcia proposed 4 categories of adolescent
  identity
• Identity Achievement
• Status of adolescents who commit to a particular
  identity following a period during which they
  consider various alternatives.
• Identity Foreclosure
• Status of adolescents who prematurely commit to
  an identity without adequately exploring
  alternatives.
• Moratorium
• Status of adolescents who may have explored
  various identity alternatives to some degree, but
  have not yet committed themselves.
• Identity Diffusion
• Status of adolescents who consider various
  identity alternatives, but do not commit to one
  or even consider options.

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Adolescent Social IssuesPersonality Differences

• Controversial Adolescents
• Children who are liked by some peers and disliked
  by others.
• Rejected Adolescents
• Children who are actively disliked.
• Whose peers may react to them in an obviously
  negative manner.
• Neglected Adolescents
• Children who receive relatively little attention
  from their peers in the form of either positive
  or negative interactions.

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Adolescent Social IssuesCurrent Issues

• Permissiveness with affection
• Premarital intercourse is viewed as permissible
  for both men and women if it occurs in the
  context of a long-term, committed, or loving
  relationship.

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesMental Health

• One in five children and adolescents has a
  psychological disorder that produces at least
  some impairment
• 5 depression
• 13 anxiety disorder
• Diagnosed disorders have been higher than it has
  ever been
• Increased acceptance
• Increased ability to diagnose
• Increased concern about psychological problems

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesLearning
Disabilities

• Defined
• Difficulties in the acquisition and use of
• Listening
• Speaking
• Reading
• Writing
• Reasoning
• Mathematical
• Growing concern in America.
• Growing trend toward child diagnosis in America.
• Dyslexia
• Reading disability that can result in the
• misperception of letters during reading and
  writing.
• Unusual difficulty in sounding out letters.
• Confusion between left and right orientation.
• Difficulties in spelling.

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesLearning
Disabilities

• ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
• Inattention, impulsiveness, low tolerance for
  frustration, and generally a great deal of
  inappropriate activity.
• Affects 3-7
• Social Problems
• Many, many children are misdiagnosed with this
  disorder.
• Many teachers will say that a child has it when
  they dont because they dont know how or refuse
  to learn how to deal with children.
• If the teacher is using up a large chunk of her
  class time to deal with a student then there is a
  problem.
• School stigmatizes these children and these
  children grow up believing that they will never
  succeed in life.
• Treatment
• Ritalin (Meth-Amphetamine) Common treatment for
  these children
• Not most effective.
• Division of Class Work and Activity
• Children need rewards and often.
• Instead of giving them 20 questions to work on
  divide it up into 4 sets of 5 and have them bring
  it up to you after completing each.
• Give them lots of physical activity and involve
  them often.
• Dont give them sugar.

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesMontessori
Education

• Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
• Interesting Montessori almost died at age 10
• of illness, she told her mother-
• Dont worry, Mother, I cannot die I have too
  much to do
• First interest was in mental retardation.
• She was impressed by the extreme interest in
  knowledge that institutionalized children showed.
• We cant teach developmentally delayed children
  things that we think they ought to know.
• Such as reading and writing.
• This will only lead to frustration.
• They are not intellectually ready.
• Best time to learn a language is this at this
• age, this ability will get worse and worse as
• they mature.

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesMontessori
Education

• Theory of Development
• Owed much to Rousseau.
• Children think and learn differently than adults.
• Concept of Sensitive Periods-
• If a child is prevented from enjoying these
  experiences at the very time when nature has
  planned for them to do so, the special
  sensitivity which draws him to them will vanish,
  with a disturbing effect on development
• Main component
• Need a certain attitude about education.
• It is not our job to direct our childrens
  learning.
• Respect their efforts at independent mastery.
• Sensitive Periods
• Order
• Details
• Use of Hands
• Walking
• Language

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesMontessori
Education

• Montessori School
• 2 ½ years to enter.
• All ages through 6 are in same class.
• Environment contains the right materials that
  correspond to the childrens inner needs at
  various sensitive periods the children will
  enthusiastically work on them on their own.
• Without supervision.
• Methods
• Free Choice
• Rewards and Punishments (never reward or punish a
  child)
• Gradual Preparation

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesIntelligence

• Mental Age/Chronological age X 100
• Standardized test with 100 being the mean IQ.
• 2/3 of all people on this planet fall between one
  standard deviation of the population mean
  (85-115)
• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
• Wechsler-Adult Intelligence Scale
• (WISC-IV) Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
  Children Revised

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesIntelligence

• Two types of Intelligence
• Fluid Intelligence Reflects information
  processing capabilities, reasoning, and memory
• Crystallized Intelligence Accumulation of
  information, skills, and strategies that people
  have learned through experience and that they can
  apply in problem-solving situations
• __________________________________________________
  _____
• 8 types of Intelligence
• Musical
• Kinesthetic
• Mathematical
• Linguistic
• Spatial
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalist
• Do you believe in this division?

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Adolescent Psychological IssuesIntelligence

• Triarchic Theory of intelligence Model that
  states that intelligence consists of three
  aspects of information processing
• Componential
• Experiential
• Contextual