Adolesence

Adolesence The Developing Adolescent Adolescence is the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood; it generally refers to a period ranging from age 12 or 13 through age 19 or 21. Although its beginning is often balanced with the beginning of puberty, adolescence is characterized by psychological and social stages as well as by biological changes (White & Speisman, 1977). In this paper I will discuss the cognitive development of adolescence and what happens during identity formation. Adolescence can be prolonged, brief, or virtually nonexistent, depending on the type of culture in which it occurs. In societies that are simple, for example, the transition from childhood to adulthood tends to occur rather rapidly, and is marked by traditionally prescribed passage rites. In more complex American and European societies, the transition period for young people has been steadily lengthening over the past 100 years, giving rise to an adolescent subculture. As a result of this prolonged transitional stage a variety of problems and concerns specifically associated with this age group have developed. Psychologists single out four areas that especially touch upon adolescent behavior and development: physiological change and growth; cognitive, or mental development; identity, or personality formation; and parent-adolescent relations (McKinney, identity, adolescence, adolescents, adolescent, erikson, during, through, people, parents, development, stage, young, psychologists, one, new, family, between, 2001, out, intellectual, group, go, age, transition, should, result, good, formation, erik, changes, believe, behavior, 2002, stages, social