Week 13 — Adolescence: Physical and Cognitive Development

Why this matters

A coach at a robotics practice and a nurse at a teen health clinic both meet teens' worries and bold plans, and both do better reading them as development rather than as a flaw.

In plain language

This chapter is about the first half of the teen years, when the body, the brain, and the way a person thinks all change at once. You will learn about puberty (the hormonal and physical changes that lead to reproductive maturity) and why it starts at such different times for different teens. You will see a model of the changing teenage brain and what it can and cannot tell you. You will meet Piaget's last stage, when teens begin to reason about possibilities, and two feelings that come with new thinking: being watched by everyone, and being one of a kind. Every age in this chapter is a typical range, never a deadline.

• Already covered: Week 11's concrete operational stage and Week 12's friendships and moral reasoning.
• This week: puberty, the brain model, the school clock, formal operations, adolescent egocentrism.
• How they connect: logic about real things now stretches to possibilities.
• Where we're going next: Week 14, adolescent identity and relationships.

Focus

How do the body, the brain, and thinking change in early adolescence, and how do theories explain it?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] describe puberty's wide range in timing
• [ ] explain the brain model and its limits
• [ ] compare a school start with the AAP's 2014 position
• [ ] place a response on the pendulum problem
• [ ] tell the imaginary audience from the personal fable

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 13 (~35–45 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes).
3. Try the practice set (15–25 minutes).
4. Do the workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment, then the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: read record R8 as the imaginary audience in one plain sentence.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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