1. Adolescent Brain Development: What Parents,
Teachers and Teens Need to Know
Lower Merion High School November 11, 2012
Editor's Notes
Lecture presented at Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA November 11, 2012
Brain development in adolescence is a new field of research, only 15 years old.
See this article from National Geographic October 2011 Teenage Brains http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text
Notice how psychiatric disorders manifest themselves during the early teenage years.
The number of “witnesses” increases the desire to take risks. This is true even if the peers aren’t ven physically present (as in laboratory settings, where the peers are in a separate room, watching from behind a one-way mirror). Just knowing that peers were watching had a powerful effect.
See how these three factors interact!
Steinberg said that the second point is the most important “take-away” from research. Couple this with earlier slides that indicate adolescent descision-making is more dependent upon rewards, rather than information. Their logic is adult-level, but because the limbic system is set on “high” and the prefrontal cortex (executive function) is immature, circumstances dictate behavior, not rationality.
Applications for teachers and parents: Note how this relates to our discussions in Module 2, when we discussed risk-taking. Schools need to provide structured after-school activities. Parents, houses of worship, youth organizations and businesses can provide the right environment for positive risk-taking and practicing how to make good choices.
