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The adolescent brain article review
The adolescent brain article review
Effects of environment in intelligence
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In the essay “What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind?” psychologist Alison Gopnik explores the issues surrounding young minds in today’s society and why they’re hitting puberty sooner and adulthood later. Gopnik suggest poor diet and lack of exercise could be a potential issues, she also presents various studies blaming brain circuitry and even speculating that the cause of today’s youth problematic mentality could be a result of an “evolutionary feature” in which humans have a prolonged childhood. Gopnik’s main concern about today’s adolescent mind, is a neurological one, Gopnik speculates that there’s an inability to sync their “control system” and their “crucial system”. Gopnik proposes a few solutions to the problem, such as more hands-on experience
in practical skills that youths would use as adults with internships and apprenticeships becoming more readily available at younger ages.
McMahon’s “Inside Your Teenager’s Scary Brain” discusses how adolescent’s brains are delicate and can easily affect their development in a good or bad way, depending on the individual’s experiences. According to Jensen, a Harvard neuroscientist and senior neurologist at two Boston hospitals, “teenage years comprise one of the brain’s most critical periods of development”. She parallels her experiences with her own children with observations of teens in general. With new research continuing to surface, studies illustrate how susceptible juvenile’s brain are and how this could generate different techniques on how society, parents, and teachers handle them.
In the article “The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction”, the author believes that teens’ sleep, as well as social, physical, and emotional behavior are all impacted by teens’ changing brains, which in turn, affect teen’s decisions. First, the author states hormones do impact social behavior in teens. For instance, the author writes, “Enormous hormonal changes take place during adolescence. Reproductive hormones shape sex-related growth and behavior, but overall social behavior.”. This example reveals that the author believes that adolescences’ hormonal changes greatly influences their social behavior. Social behavior, such as stress, may occur due to these drastic changes. Teen’s social behavior influences teen decision making and teen’s
You can sometimes compare the mood swings in teens to the personality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! One minute your teen is kind and loving, and the very next critical and hurtful – aren’t they? On some days your teenagers might be all happy, controlled and thoughtful, while on other days they might just be ranting and raving about petty issues. Sounds familiar!
In a Ted Talk video by Adriana Galván “The teenage brain is really good at seeking out new experiences enjoying thrills and seeking out thrills.” That is because of the prefrontal cortex it is the part of the brain made for decision making and impulse control, because of that teens are more likely to seek out thrills than adults or children but that is because their lack of impulse control causes them to be reckless. In a Ted Talk video by Adriana Galván she mentions “that the brain matures and continues to do so” and “Your brain changes everyday and as you sit in this room your brain is reacting to my voice, to the person sitting next to you and your experiences ant the people you affiliate with shape the way your brain ultimately develops.” This means that although it is unsure if the brain keeps developing past the mid twenties it is a known fact that the brain constantly reacts and changes to the environment around it, which is completely different from the original belief of it over a decade ago. One example of the brains constant changes is in Romeo and Juliet when Friar Lawrence says “Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes” (Act 2 Scene 2). Showing how
Further research indicates that a person's intellectual capacity is at its greatest during these years. So much so that it could be compared to that of a full grown adult. The brain acts as a sponge soaking up all the information around it, learning as much as it can. “Adolescents and adults seem to engage different parts of their brain to different extents…” Thought the intellectual ability of a teen can match that of an adult does not mean that they think and interpret things the same. While performing tasks such as solving different problems and test, studies show that, when compared side by side, teens use different parts of the brain to different extents then the adult. This is due to the fact that the brain is still “Under Construction”. Therefore teen must use different parts of the brain for the same task as not all aspects of the brain are ready to handle some tasks, causing different results in different emotional and behavioral responses. This indicates the teen brain is still maturing
As every child grows up in a different environment, not all have a safe one to grow up in and as a result everything that surrounds them becomes apart of the clarity that their mind incorporates and becomes apart of that child 's behavior of way. In terms of brain development children or teens often listen, and see what is around them, it is also said, by researchers of the National Institute of Health, that in recent studies that were made that in teen years massive loss of brain tissue...
Anne Tyler’s “Teenage Wasteland” is a story about a modern day family of four and the relationship issues they experienced with each other. The story is presented in third person limited; however, the reader is shown much about how the mother of the family feels and the troubles she experiences in her relationships with her husband and children, primarily her son Donny. Daisy is portrayed as a mother who worries that she had failed Donny because of his continual disobedience toward the authority figures in his life. Donny is a teen who constantly misbehaves in school and in the story is described as “noisy, lazy, and disruptive; always fooling around with his friends, and would not respond in class.” (188). These behaviors lead Donny to poor grades in school. Daisy takes Donny to a tutor who is supposed to help Donny improve his grades and make better choices in life. The tutor turns out to own a “teenage wasteland” as referred to in the story that was a place that “teenage hoodlums” hang out. Donny starts to get worse in school and eventually gets kicked out. After Donny gets kicked out of school, he leaves his hometown and his whereabouts become unknown. Daisy is left in shock, wondering where she went wrong in young Donny’s life.
What can you learn about adolescence by watching five very different teens spend Saturday detention together? With each and everyone of them having their own issues weather it be at home, school, or within themselves. During this stage of life adolescents are seen as rude, disrespectful, and out of control. But why is this? Is it truly all the child’s fault? Teens have to face quite a few issues while growing up. Adolescence is the part of development where children begin push back against authority and try to figure out who they are or who they are going to become. Therefore, we will be looking at adolescent physical changes, their relationships, cognitive changes and the search for identity as depicted in the movie The Breakfast Club (Hughes,1985).
Laurence Steinberg, a distinguished University Professor of psychology, specializing in child and adolescent psychological development, wrote an article Should the science of adolescent brain development inform public policy: neuroscience has made tremendous progress in studying the adolescent brain, opening opportunities--and raising challenges--for using the knowledge to inform a variety of public policies for Issues ,Science and Technology, Spring
The Development of the human brains can affect our behavior in many ways. The teenage brain or adolescent brains does not process the
14, 2002). Riley is currently experiencing physical changes in her body such as developing breast, getting her period, and hormonal fluctuations. Along with these other changes, her prefrontal cortex is still developing. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision-making, planning, and impulse control (Micucci, 2012). “The physical changes associated with puberty, in themselves, have little negative impact on the adolescent’s self-image, except in one instance: when adolescents are going through puberty around the same time they are experiencing other changes in life, such as changing schools”(Micucci, p. 18,
Teenagers and young children are at developmental stages where they are the most vulnerable to outside influences. Frances E. Jensen said a few things that caught my attention; “The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it… It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them.” These students can be very smart academically and...
During adolescence emotional reactivity is heightened, and the social environment is changing as adolescents spend more time with their peers than adults (Casey, 2008). To an adolescent, the value of positive information, as well as negative information may be exaggerated which leads to greater emotional reactivity and sensitivity during this growth period (Casey, 2008). This can heighten the incidence of addiction and the onset of psychological disorders (Casey, 2008). There are various theories that attempt to explain why adolescents engage in risky behaviour. One of these theories by Yurgelun-Todd stems from human adolescent brain development, and proposes that cognitive development during the adolescent period is associated with increasingly superior efficiency of cognitive control and affective modulation (Casey, 2008). This theory also suggest...
For example, teenage brains possess the same abilities adult brains acquire, yet with slower reflexes: “In fact, by age 15 they can score as well as adults if they're motivated, resisting temptation about 70 to 80 percent of the time”(Dobbs 4). . Teenage brains are quick and slick, but sometimes don’t know when to stop. They are unpredictable to their capabilities of progression and destruction. In addition, whether it’s misbehavior or moody behavior, teenagers have such daily variations: “These studies help explain why teens behave with such vexing inconsistency:beguiling at breakfast, disgusting at dinner; masterful on Monday, sleepwalking on Saturday”(Dobbs 4). It’s true that laziness does go back and forth in a teenager’s brain; they might grasp onto outstanding motivation or irksome slothfulness. Kids, adolescents, and teenagers still have their own skills, but it can be hard to remember considering they think with heartful instinct. Teenagers still have developing brains that just need to balance out logic and
New Releases. (n.d.). The adolescent brain: Beyond raging hormones. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog-extra/the-adolescent-brain-beyond-raging-hormones