A Study of Interactions Emerging Issues in the Science of Adolescence: Workshop Summary (2006) / Chapter Skim
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2 A Portrait of Adolescence
2 A Portrait of Adolescence
Pages 5-14
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From page 5... ...
The professionals who work with young people in this fast-changing environment need a clear understanding of the processes of adolescence, yet models for understanding this phase of life are rapidly changing in ways that can significantly influence practice. Recognizing that significant changes are occurring in the social contexts in which adolescents live, workshop participants focused on selected areas in which social influences may interact with biological and behavioral processes that occur during the second decade of life.
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From page 6... ...
It has also stimulated the development of a new set of studies focused on the population of 18- to 25-year-olds, who are increasingly viewed as encountering a separate stage of development termed "emerging adulthood." Changes in mood and emotions occur during adolescence as well -- as parents frequently observe, teenagers may rather suddenly display such changes as new emotional intensity, increased interest in romance, increases in risk-taking, and changes in sleep patterns. These affective developments may also be linked to the endocrine system, although the mechanisms through which this takes place are less well understood.
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From page 7... ...
Looking at any of them alone would yield an incomplete and potentially misleading picture of adolescence, but the interactions that affect adolescents are even more complex than this list suggests. Dahl emphasized the importance of studying adolescence within a developmental framework, that is, an approach in which the concerns of psychiatry, pediatrics, endocrinology, affective neuroscience, and other fields can be integrated in an understanding of other forces that influence stages of change and developmental outcomes.
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From page 8... ...
The increasing gap between these two processes creates a time of increased vulnerability and risk as well as opportunities to develop particular strengths and positive behaviors. Strategies that strengthen social support, or "scaffolding," especially during vulnerable intervals, are thus critical means of supporting youth, particularly those who are growing up in high-risk environments.
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From page 9... ...
deliberately recruit teens through the enhancement or manipulation of selected sensory and emotional triggers. Broader awareness of these triggers in the social environments of youth can help intensify protective factors, discourage vulnerabilities and influences that lead to negative trajectories, and enhance their potential for selfregulation.
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From page 10... ...
Significant impairment of cognitive function, emotions that lurch out of control -- these effects of sleep deprivation can lead to significant stress on their own, which can in turn exacerbate problems with sleeping. As Dahl put it, "you can't study sleep without going across dis ciplines." Sleep deprivation can be a tipping point that pushes a struggling child over the edge into dysfunction, and it is influenced by sociocultural and social factors, parenting, and policy (school start times)
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From page 11... ...
. Shirtcliff pointed out that hormones are important biological markers for endocrine mechanisms that influence normal developmental processes as well as regulatory disorders.
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From page 12... ...
Shirtcliff highlighted interactions among biological and social factors that influence adolescent behavior. She noted that not only can individual hormone function predispose a child to a particular disorder, but also that evidence increasingly suggests that social context can affect the way hormonal effects are expressed.
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From page 13... ...
As a result, increasing attention is focusing on the ways in which social and cultural factors in the environment of today's youth exacerbate or soften sources of stress and disruption that influence biological, behavioral, and developmental processes. Another significant conceptual shift has been from a risk or deficit model -- a focus on all that can go wrong with teenagers -- to what is called a positive youth development model.
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From page 14... ...
14 EMERGING ISSUES IN THE SCIENCE OF ADOLESCENCE model, discussed in greater detail below, has had an important influence, many youth programs and policies remain focused on adolescence as a time of high risk. Several presenters offered perspectives on the most prevalent dysfunctional behaviors while also expressing frustration with the persistent compartmentalization of research communities, which inhibits their ability to address underlying processes that cut across many of these problem areas.
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