Adolescence development

• Adolescence is a period of development, where the individual builds their identity, between 11/12 and 20 years old.
• During adolescence, many biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes occur.
• The brain matures around 25 years old.
• Puberty specifically involves the hormonal and physical transformations at the beginning of adolescence.
• Puberty begins with increased hormone production and concludes when the sex organs are mature.
• The end of puberty marks the individual's biological capacity to reproduce.
• Hormones regulate daily functions, including hunger, sleep, mood, stress, and libido.
• More than twenty hormones affect an individual's growth and maturation.
• Puberty results in increased body mass and height.
• Primary and secondary sexual characteristics also develop.
• Hormone production triggers puberty, even before visible signs such as breast buds in girls or pubic hair in boys.
• Sexual characteristics are classified as primary or secondary.

Key Hormones During Puberty

• Growth hormone production increases which triggers growth spurts.
• Gonadoliberin increases, causing the production of sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone.
• Testosterone concentration levels in boys are around 18 times higher than during their childhood.
• Estrogen concentration levels in girls are around 8 times higher than during their childhood.

Physical Transformations

• Puberty typically starts earlier in girls.
• A growth spurt is a physical characteristic, and also marks the development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics.
• Growth spurts involve sudden height increases that may not be uniform and can be unpredictable, affecting all body parts.
• Increases in bone length and density are part of the growth spurt.
• Growth starts at the extremities (feet, hands) and moves towards the body's center.
• Adolescents often end up with large feet and long fingers which grow faster than the arms and legs.
• Increase is size is followed by increase in muscle size.
• The torso being the last part of the body to grow can lead to a disproportionate appearance.
• During adolescence, fat accumulates more easily.
• However, it gets eliminated or redistributed as height increases.
• Girls maintain a higher percentage of body fat compared to boys.
• Height increases, followed by muscle mass growth.
• Boys experience muscle increases, particularly in the upper body and arms, with arm strength potentially doubling between ages 8 and 18, resulting in the ability to throw a ball four times as far.
• The head is the last body part to reach its final size, completing development several years after the feet.
• Body sides can develop at different rates.
• Body development takes 3-4 years from start to near adult appearance.
• The lungs and heart develop, which improves an individual's physical endurance.
• Puberty can also make hair oily, intensify body odor, and cause acne.
• Primary and secondary sexual characteristics develop concurrently.
• Changes in secondary sexual characteristics, which include physical appearance and physique, are more noticeable.

Brain Development

• Frontal lobes are the last part of the brain to mature.
• Frontal lobes perform important functions in inhibition, emotional regulation, planning, and organization.
• Slower frontal lobe development can lead to impulsive behavior.
• Adolescents can reason.
• Despite this, uneven brain development means the prefrontal cortex is not fully formed, which is neccessary for controlling impulses, setting priorities, and anticipating consequences.
• The limbic system matures early in life, years before the prefrontal cortex.
• The amygdala, a limbic system structure, is responsible for quick and strong emotions like anger, joy, and fear.
• The prefrontal cortex helps coordinate, inhibit, and develop strategies for emotional management.
• An underdeveloped prefrontal cortex means that adolescents are more likely to experience strong emotions.
• Adolescents also participate in sensation and risk-taking such as substance use or unprotected sex.

Psychological Impacts

• Adolescents adapt their mental image to their changing physical features.
• Adolescents may retain their childhood mental self-image, even if it is no longer accurate, leading to self-perception issues.
• As body parts grow at different rates, adolescents may struggle with movement, leading to awkwardness.
• Adolescents can fixate on their physical appearance, resulting in hours spent analyzing themselves in the mirror.
• Gradually, they accept themselves as they are.
• Hormonal influences can lead to stronger and more frequent sexual impulses.

Cognitive Development

• Thought processes, learning, and memory continue to develop during adolescence.
• Selective attention skills improve, allowing activities like studying with music.
• Piaget proposed that adolescents attain the stage of formal operations.
• This includes logical reasoning.
• Adolescents think abstractly.
• Adolescents are able to formulate hypotheses and create strategies to test them.
• Pre-operational stage involves children rely on intuitive thinking and imagine things without needing to prove them.
• Operational stage operates through logical thinking.
• Formal stage operates through abstract thought.
• Adolescents develop skills like discussion and argumentation.
• Formal operations transition from concrete to abstract concepts as they learn in school.
• While children might study 4X8, adolescents learn to apply the information to (2x).(3y).
• While children might study other cultures by describing daily life, adolescents learn concepts such as gross national product.

Research Limits

• Hypothesis-based deduction become possible in most adoelscents, however it is not true for everyone.
• Cognitive development differs between individuals and the rate at which all cognitive abilities are acquired.

Questions To Consider

• Earlier starts to puberty are linked to richer diets and endocrine disrupting chemicals.
• Puberty is triggered in the brain via the hypothalamus that produces hormones in the ovaries and testicles.
• Adolescent brains have gray matter that thins in the synaptic connections.
• Mental health issues that can be present with adolescence include depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
• Intelligence is the capacity to learn, reason, and adapt to new situations.
• Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve new problems, use logic in new situations, and identify patterns.
• Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use learned knowledge and experience.
• Adolescents can have irregular sleep schedules, which leads to melatonin imbalances.
• Adolescents can have an increased risk of sensation seeking since the prefrontal cortex is the last brain structure to mature.
• People can be more sensitive to negative versus positive feedbacks.