CHAPTER 9 LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT

1. CHAPTER 9 LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE

2. 1. What is the nature of adolescence? • Dramatic biological changes • Relationships with parents, peers and teachers change • Thoughts become more abstract and idealistic • Most adolescents make transition to adult life successfully • Many do not because of too few opportunities and lack of support

3. 2. What physical changes do we experience in adolescence? • Puberty: period of rapid physical maturation • Includes hormonal and bodily changes • Usually early in adolescence • Order of physical changes for males and females in puberty -- GEC opportunity

4. 3. What hormonal changes occur in adolescence? • Hormones: chemicals secreted by endocrine glands • Carried throughout body using blood stream

5. 4. Which endocrine glands are involved in adolescent changes? • Hypothalamus, pituitary and gonads • Hypothalamus = structure in the brain controlling eating and sexual behavior • Pituitary = brain structure controlling growth and regulating other glands • Gonads = testes in males and ovaries in females

6. 5. Which hormones dominate in males and females during puberty? • Testosterone in males affects height and voice change • Estradiol (form of estrogen) in females affects changes in breasts, uterus and skeletal system • Both hormones are present in both boys and girls

7. 6. What are other influences on changes in adolescent physical development? • Social factors contribute to changes • Stress, eating patterns, exercise, sexual activity tension and depression also affect hormonal levels

8. 7. When does puberty begin? • For boys = as early as 10 and as late as 13 ½ • For girls = sometime between ages 9 and 15 • Specific time influenced by nutrition, health, and other environmental factors

9. 8. What are influences on body image changes in adolescence? • Adolescents more likely preoccupied with bodies than other age groups • Girls tend to be less satisfied than boys, in general

10. 9. How does brain develop during adolescence? • Corpus callosum thickens - improving ability to process information • Amygdala ( influences emotions, especially anger) matures earlier than prefrontal cortex • Adolescents capable of strong emotions • Prefrontal cortex not developed enough to control emotional expressions

11. 10. How does sexual identity develop during adolescence? • Involves learning to manage sexual feelings, developing new forms of intimacy, learning skills to regulate sexual behavior • Sexual identity involves activities, interests and behavior styles • Sexual orientation develops during this time also

12. Wide variety in tendency toward sexual activity • May be influenced by religious and other values

13. Development of gay and lesbian preferences may be characterized by same-sex attractions in childhood, lack of heterosexual dating, and recognition of sexual orientation in mid- to late adolescence • Other adolescents may experience both same-sex and other-sex attractions

14. 11. What are sexually transmitted infections? • Diseases associated with sexual activity • Not prevented by use of contraceptives, such as birth control pills or implants • Examples: HIV-AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia (- further discussion in chapter 11)

15. 12. Why is adolescent pregnancy a concern? • In US - highest rate of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing among industrialized countries • Rate of pregnancy and childbearing in US decreased since 1991, because of increased contraceptive use and fear of STIs, such as AIDS

16. Adolescent pregnancy associated with risk for mother and baby • Often mother drops out of school • Usually mother never catches up economically with women who postpone childbearing • Risk for rapid subsequent pregnancies • Infants have higher risk of low birth weight and neurological problems

17. Pregnancy alone not associated with negative consequences • Adolescent mothers likely from low-SES families • Adolescent pregnancy in general is high-risk circumstance • Support for adolescent mothers is important in assisting educational and occupational opportunities

18. 13. What are issues important in adolescent health? • Nutrition and exercise affect quality of health • Poor nutrition and low-level exercise major contributors to obesity in adolescence • Problems with nutrition and health can lead to poor health habits and early death in adult life

19. Sleep patterns also contribute to general health in adolescence • Inadequate sleep associated with fatigue, sleepiness, irritability, depression and increased use of beverages containing caffeine • Increased sleepiness during the day in older adolescents associated with changing biological rhythms

20. 14. What are major causes of death in adolescence? • Accidents (Risky driving habits (speeding and tailgating, driving under influence of alcohol or drugs) • Homicide (especially among African-American male adolescents) • Suicide ( discussed further in chapter 10)

21. 15. How do parents, peers and school environment affect substance use and abuse in adolescence? • Special concern for children who begin use in early adolescence or childhood • Person who begins drinking before age 14 more likely to become alcohol dependent than peers who wait • Positive relationships with parents and others associated with lower probability to have substance use problems

22. 16. What are 2 eating disorders affecting adolescent development? • Anorexia nervosa = obsession with being thin associated with starvation • Symptoms = (1) weighing less than 85% of normal weight for height and bone size; • (2) intense fear of gaining weight; • (3) having distorted body image

23. Anorexia nervosa usually begins in early to middle adolescence • Most people affected are young, white individuals in adolescence or early adulthood • Usually from middle-class, well-educated families • Set high standards, feel stress about not meeting standards and obsessed about how others perceive them

24. Bulimia nervosa = individual consistently follows a binge-and-purge pattern • Consumes large amounts of high-calorie food followed by purging through vomiting or use of laxatives • Preoccupied with food, strong fear of being overweight, experience depression and anxiety

25. 17. How does Piaget’s theory describe cognitive development during adolescence? • Piaget believed the formal operational stage of cognitive development begins during adolescence • Formal operational stage associated with ability to think more abstractly • No longer limited to actual experiences to anchor thinking • Increased ability to develop make-believe situations, abstract propositions and hypothetical situations

26. Example in verbal problem-solving ability • Formal operational thinker can think through the process involving A, B, and C and understand that if A=B and B=C, then A=C without actually seeing concrete examples of A,B, and C

27. Another example is ability to think about thinking ( metacognition and considering the nature of thought) • Adolescents also display idealism and concern with possibilities • Speculate about ideal characteristics and qualities • Can lead to comparison with others in light of these ideal qualities

28. Adolescent formal operational thinkers begin to use hypothetical-deductive reasoning • Creating a hypothesis and deducing implications and possible consequences • Also develop ways to test hypotheses

29. 18. What criticisms have been applied to Piaget’s ideas? • GEC possibility

30. 19. What is adolescent egocentrism? • Heightened self-consciousness • 2 key components: • (1) imaginary audience = belief that others are as interested in them as they themselves are • Associated with attempts to gain attention by others • and

31. (2) personal fable = associated with sense of uniqueness and invincibility or invulnerability • Can lead to risky behaviors and believing that nothing bad will happen as a result

32. 20. How does information processing theory describe cognition during adolescence? • Most important change in adolescent thinking is improved executive functioning • Involves reasoning, decision-making, monitoring critical thinking, and monitoring thinking progress • Improved executive functioning leads to more effective learning, improved use of attention and critical thinking

33. 21. How does decision making change during adolescence? • Increased time in decision-making – concerning friends, dating, possibility of sex, plans for the future • Adolescents, more so than children, can generate different options, evaluate them, anticipate the consequences and consider source credibility • Ability to make good decisions not always associated with actually carrying them out in a specific life situation ( example, driving)

34. 22. How does critical thinking change during adolescence? • Increases with age • Not as frequent as might be expected in late adolescence • If fundamental skills (literacy and math) are undeveloped, critical thinking skills also likely to be immature • Improved critical thinking allows 4 benefits

35. 23. Benefits of improved critical thinking • (1) increased speed and automaticity • (2)increased breadth of content knowledge in variety of domains • (3) increased ability to construct new knowledge combinations • (4)greater range and more spontaneity of using strategies for obtaining and applying knowledge

36. 24. What are characteristics of how schools influence adolescent development? • First year of transition can be difficult • Transition occurs at same time adolescents are experiencing physical, emotional and social changes • Adolescents may experience the top-dog phenomenon • Moving from being biggest, oldest and most experienced to being youngest, smallest and least powerful

37. 25. What recommendations have been made to create effective educational environments for young adolescents? • GEC possibility

38. 26. What are concerns about the high school experience affects adolescent development? • Criticism that high schools encourage passivity • Recommendation that schools create variety of paths to develop secure identity • Concern that many students graduate with deficient reading, writing and math skills • Increased concern about high school drop outs

39. 27. What is service learning? • Form of education promoting social responsibility and service to community • Encourages activities such as tutoring, helping older adults and assisting at child care centers • Can lead to decrease in being self-centered and more motivated to help others

40. 28. What are 2 conditions that make service learning more effective? • (1) giving students a degree of choice as to the service learning activity they participate in • (2) providing students with opportunities to reflect on their service learning experiences • Have resulted in higher grades, increased goal-setting and higher self-esteem and improved sense of making a difference in the lives of others

41. CHAPTER 10 Socioemotional Development in Adolescence

42. 1. What is identity? • Self-portrait • Career and work path • Political identity • Religious identity • Relationships • Achievement and intellectual identity

43. Sexual identity • Cultural and ethnic identity • Hobbies and interest • Personality • Physical identity

44. 2. Erikson’s view • 5th developmental stage • Psychological moratorium • -- gap between childhood security and adult autonomy • Free to try out new identities • Experimentation to find place in the world

45. 3. Developmental changes • Continuous during adolescence • Begins with attachment • Sense of self • Emergence of independence • Final phase with life review in old age

46. Late adolescence - physical, cognitive and socioemotional development allows synthesizing and constructing adult maturity • 4 stages of identity-

47. Diffusion – not yet experience crisis or make commitment • Foreclosure – make a commitment but not experience crisis; especially with authoritarian parenting style

48. Moratorium – experiencing crisis with no commitment • Achievement – past crisis and has made an identity commitment

49. 4. Beyond Erikson • Key changes in identity may occur in early adult life – 18-25 years • MAMA cycle possible during adult life – moratorium and achievement alternation

50. 5. Family influences • Individuality has 2 dimensions • - self-assertion, when you have and communicate a point of view • - separateness, using communication to express difference from others