Adolescence Ages 11 to 19

Adolescents

Brain development in adolescents

Adolescence is the period of psychological and social transition from childhood to adulthood. This period of life is characterized by psychological changes when it comes to self-consciousness, identity and mood. Brain imaging studies conducted recently show that the human brain continues to develop throughout their adolescent years. Although there are some differences between the male and female teenagers when it comes to the course of the neural development, significant brain restructuring takes place in terms of the course of their neural development in both sexes.

The regions of the brain where development is protracted include prefrontal cortex and the temporal parietal cortex. The frontal cortex area is responsible for cognitive abilities like making plans, remembering details, inhibiting inappropriate behaviors and so on. It also plays an important role in understanding others and self-awareness. Since this pre-frontal cortex of the adolescent brains mature, older adolescents aged 18-19 are in a position of making conscious decisions and even control their impulses. This pre-frontal cortex does not reach full maturity until one is 25 years of age (Lorain, 2009). The development of these regions is what most likely contributes to the behaviors that are typically associated with an individual who is in their teenage years for instance susceptibility to peer pressure, increased risk taking and reduced self-control. The corpus callosum also changes during adolescent and this is the area that influences the learning of language as well as thinking. Lastly changes in the cerebellum also occur during ones adolescent years. However, unlike the pre-frontal cortex and corpus callosum it changes well into the adolescent years. This part of the brain is what helps in balance and coordination also it also helps an adolescent to process mental tasks and guide them through their social lives which are quite complex at this stage ( Burnett, Sebastian, & and Blakemore, 2009).

Some of the typical adolescent behaviors that are reinforced by brain development are preference of interaction with ones peers, preference of active to passive learning and the engagement in strong and intensive interests that are often short lived (Lorain, 2009).

2. Identity formation

Identity formation is the process through which one develops their own distinct personality. The formation of ones identity does not begin nor end in adolescence however; it takes a great importance during this period. There are various reasons why the adolescent period is termed as key when it comes to formation of identity these include; self-concept that includes both actual self and possible self. In early adolescence cognitive developments lead to greater awareness of one self, others and their judgments and thoughts, being able to think about abstract, future possibilities and being able to consider multiple personalities. This leads to adolescents experiencing a shift from simple, global and concrete descriptions that are typical of young children. At the childhood stages, people define themselves with their physical traits while as adolescents they define themselves on the basis of their thoughts, opinions and values.

The second reason is gender, culture, ethnicity and sexual orientation. All these influence identity formation in their own ways for instance gender identity describes the gender which one identifies with, whether an adolescent perceives themselves to be a woman or man or give a description of themselves in a less conventional way. Culture identity refers to the identity of a group or culture as far as an adolescent is influenced by belonging to the group or culture. Ethnicity identity comes in when an adolescent identifies themselves with a certain ethnicity normally based on a presumed common ancestry and genealogy. Sexual orientations defined as an erotic inclination towards people who are in one or more genders. When it comes to sexual identity it is during adolescence that most gay/lesbian and transgender adolescents begin the process of recognizing and making sense of their feelings

The third reason is development of autonomy during stages of development. Degree to which adolescents are taken as autonomous beings usually varies by culture as do these behaviors which represent the emerging autonomy. There are three types of autonomy; emotional, behavioral and cognitive. Emotional autonomy involves the adolescents' relationship with other peoples and in most cases includes developing mature connections with peers and adults. Behavioral autonomy involves an adolescent developing the ability of regulating their own behavior and act on their personal decisions. Finally cognitive autonomy refers to the capacity for adolescent in taking part in processes which require independent reasoning and making decisions without relying on social validation. All these have an impact on the formation of identity in adolescents.

3. Adolescence and relationships