4 Troubled Teens Blog

Researchers with Temple University have discovered that teenagers develop intellectual maturity before they become emotionally mature.

• Dr. Laurence Steinberg and his colleagues tested 935 people, ages 10 to 30 years old to determine how maturity levels differ and develop as people get older.
  
• Differences in cognitive capacity or intellectual maturity increased from ages 11 to 16 and then showed no improvements after age 16.
  
• However, the results were different when it came to psychosocial maturity.
  
• Compared to teenagers, adults were more likely to demonstrate psychosocial maturity, which enables them to control their emotions, resist peer pressure and appreciate the risk of certain situations.

Dr. Steinberg's research is used to justify the positions of the American Psychological Association about teen pregnancy and teen criminality. In two recent court cases, the APA filed briefs that said teenagers are capable of making informed decisions about whether to end pregnancies but they lack the maturity to be held to adult levels of responsibility if they commit violent crimes.

"It is very difficult for a 16-year-old to resist peer pressure in a heated volatile situation," Dr. Steinberg said. "Most times there is no time to talk to an adult to inject some reason and reality into the situation. Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in groups with other teens that are not premeditated."

When it comes to medical decisions, Dr. Steinberg said, "Adolescents can take the time to understand and weigh options provided by health care practitioners. Rarely are these decisions made in the heat of the moment without consultation with adults. Under such circumstances, adolescents exhibit adult maturity."

The study appeared in the journal American Psychologist.

Labels: emotional_issues, teens, maturity, development

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Two new research studies indicate that children who have spiritual lives tend to be happy and well adjusted.

A University of British Columbia study found that children who feel that their lives have meaning are happier than their peers. However, religious practices such as attending church did not affect their happiness.

Professor Mark Holder and his colleagues surveyed 320 Canadian children (ages 8 to 12) and their parents about the children's temperaments, religious practices, and spirituality. Outgoing children tended to be happier than shy ones, and children who had spiritual values such as being kind to others were more likely to be happy.

This was the first study of young children. Previous studies have found a link between teenagers' happiness and spirituality.

A second study, from the National Center for Health Statistics in the United States, indicated that children who live in two-parent families and who regularly attend religious services are less likely to have problems at home or in school.

Specifically, these children were 5.5 times less likely to repeat a grade and 2.5 times less likely to be reported by school officials for conduct or academic problems than were children who did not live in two-parent homes or attend religious services. It did not matter whether the parents were biological or adoptive.

The NCHS study used surveys of more than 100,000 children and their parents. The results were the same regardless of the child's family income, parental education, or race.

Labels: development, religion, spirituality

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Adolescence is a time of "great risk taking and opportunity" because of changes that occur in brain development, according to Dr. Jay Giedd, writing in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Changes in the brain during the teen years affect cognition, emotion, and behavior.

Dr. Giedd's study is the result of the National Institute of Mental Health's Longitudinal Brain Imagining Project, begun in 1989. About 2,000 people are undergoing brain imagining scans every two years as well as neuropsychological and behavior assessments and DNA tests. The 387 subjects ages 3 to 27 are serving as models of brain development.

Gray matter in the human brain increases in volume until the early teens, and then decreases through old age. During adolescence, brain development is a refining process, with increased connectivity and integration of disparate functions, changing reward systems and frontal/limbic balance, Dr. Giedd writes. The brain's "executive functions" increase during adolescence. Executive functions might include the regulation of emotion, response inhibition, organization, long-range planning, and the ability to pay attention.

"The teen brain is not a broken or defective adult brain," Dr. Giedd said. However, the changes and the "enormous plasticity" of the adolescent brain may make teenagers more likely to take risks and seek new sensations and experiences.

Read more about how a teen's brain development is linked to drug use in this article: "Brain's Executive Control Function Linked to Substance Abuse in Teens"

Labels: brain_chemistry, development, substance_abuse

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments