Development Stages: Adolescence

Development refers to growth, adaptation and change that occur over the course of a lifetime (Papalia, et. al, 2007). The human being is never static, from aim to death, physical and psychological change is constantly taking place in all of us. The process of development has been thought of in terms of stages that each(prenominal) of us must go through. These stages be characterized by certain behavioural or developmental characteristics that each of us goes through at contrasting rates and even at different ages.Among the stages of development, no other typeface of the life cycle has commanded as much at decennarytion as adolescence. Adolescence give the gateister easily be described as the best of times and the scourge of times. This stage is affected by the structure of the society in which the individualist is raised. Hence, different cultures may come different conceptionions of adolescence. Many cultures have rites of overtaking when the child enters adolescence o r adulthood.While in Western cultures, it is a gradual inflection from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence is marked by changes in the physical, emotional, social and cognitive aspects of the individual. The rapid physical changes occur at the onset of puberty during adolescence the bodily changes frequently occur at a slower rate. In this stage, due to change magnitude activity of the gonads at puberty, elicit glands develop rapidly and become functional, the sex organs mature and the major secondary sex characteristics ar much defined.The skeleton stops growing, hence the adolescent reaches his/her mature height in this stage and the various parts of the body gradually come into attribute (Steinberg, 2002). The physical changes that adolescents experience causes their preoccupation with their physical appearance and of what may be considered as normal Developmental Stages Page 2 development. Few adolescents ar content with their bodies, and this discontent can lead to low ered self-esteems and insecurity. Moreover, adolescence discovers their sexuality in this stage and tends to act on it. jejunes in like manner experience heightened emotional tensions, which may result from the hormonal and physical changes they are going through, it can to a fault be brought about by the social pressures they must face and of which they have non been prepared. Adolescents experience emotional instability from time to time, which results from their adjustments to changes in their lives. analogous when they are offenseed by the thought that they are being toughened like a child or treated unfairly. However, they express their anger by sulking, refusing to speak our loudly criticizing those who angered them.While adolescent emotions are a good deal intense, uncontrolled and seemingly irrational, it improves with age (Geselle, et. al, 1956). Adolescents emotions also relate the vogue they relate with other community and how they view their social sphere. Adole scents thought patterns are generally egocentric. Elkind (1967) proposed that adolescents assume that e precise 1 else in the valet views the world as they do. Adolescent egocentrism has two facets, the psycheal manufacture and the imaginary audience. The personal fable is a romanticized self-generated story of ones personal destiny.Like when the adolescent believes that shoplifting is bad and there is a possibility of being caught by the police, but feels that it will non elapse to him/her. The imaginary audience refers to the adolescents belief that other people are scrutinizing him/her because he/she is the most important concern of other people. The concept of the imaginary audience may help explain wherefore students are not comfortable in giving reports or presentations in class, as they believe that they are under scrutiny when they do so.This feeling is very real for the adolescent and may impair his/her Developmental Stages Page 3 learning in the classroom. Teachers c an help by being crude to this issue and thus provide encouragement and positive feedback on improvements do by students, or to assign presentations in groups of two, where the team presents it to the class to percolate the feeling of being scrutinized. According to Piaget (1972) by the time a person reaches adolescence, he/she begins the final phase of intellectual development, which is called formal operation.This stage is characterized by the ability to solve abstract problems. The formal operational inferer is not bound by content and available experience, rather he/she can hypothesize and deal with the what ifs. The adolescent therefore is able to think of concepts and ideas easy beyond his/her knowledge and experience, to look for answers in a systematic way and to use logical reasoning. Considering the cognitive stage of adolescents, teachers can challenge students to think beyond the common and simple responses to questions put to them.The teacher can also encourage stu dents to make use of their cognitive skills by analyzing, predicting, justifying, and defending their ideas in class. The teacher however, has to recognize that students conception of their ideas and abstract thoughts are products of their social and cultural backgrounds, thus students may give different explanations to a particular question or hypothesis. Like when students are asked to analyze the reasons why societies celebrate events, the teacher must allow for other cultural celebrations and not limit it to American celebrations.ReferencesElkind, D. (1967). Egocentrism and Adolescence Child Development, 38, 1025-1034Gesell, A., Ilg, F., & Ames, L. (1956). Youth The years from ten to sixteen. New York Harperand RowPapalia, D., Olds, S., & Feldman, R. (2007). Human Development, 10th ed. McGraw HillPiaget, J. (1972). able evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development 151-12.Steinberg, L. (2002). Adolescence 6th ed. McGraw Hill