Cognitive development in adolescents
Introduction
It is the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood. It is therefore a transitional stage that marks the development of a human being from childhood to adulthood. The stage occurs between the average ages of thirteen to nineteen. At the stage, a human being undergoes physical, emotional and psychological changes. Psychological research has established that the stage is characterized by disorientation and discovery. It can raise numerous identity questions as humans seek to cultivate a sense of self. Several identity questions need to address failure to which an adolescent may lose identity. Adolescents may need to make tough choices on friendship, sexuality, gender, drugs and alcohol among other controversial topics.
Cognitive development in adolescents
Adolescents develop in three main aspects; cognitive, emotional, and psychological aspects. Cognitive development is the process of maturing in terms of thinking capacity. An individual’s thinking ability changes; the person stops reasoning as a child and starts reason as an adult (Casey, et al., 2018). An adolescent can therefore think and reasons like an adult. The person can take therefore take accountability of their actions. Cognitive development occurs at three levels. At the first level, the adolescent develops advanced reasoning skills (Lisdahl, et al., 2018). The person can therefore assess different situations and reason on the possibilities at hand. This includes thinking hypothetically and reason logically. Logical thoughts are characterized by the ability to collect data, analyze and make concrete conclusions on the situation at hand. On the second level, the individual develops abstract reasoning skills. An individual moves from being a wishful thinker to thinking on the line of knowledge. As an abstract thinker, a person can think and imagine issues beyond personal experience. At the stage, therefore, the individual can love, reason and assess advanced mathematics, think along spiritual lines among other abstract topics. By developing cognitive abstract reasoning skills, and adolescent can focus on physical objects in problem-solving. It is, therefore, possible that an adolescent can be frustrated by schoolwork as they transit in school life. As a result of developed abstract reasoning skills, adolescents experience allegory on self. This self-made character is anchored on an imaginative audience. In such situations the character built varies depending on the individual’s wishful thinking (Casey, et al., 2018). The character informs the reason why adolescents frequently engage in risky behaviours such as alcoholism and drug abuse. As evidenced by neuroimaging studies, adolescents may often experience emotional satisfaction by engaging in risk-taking behaviours. The urge for this satisfaction triggers their curiosity and hence engage in risky behaviours. Moreover, concrete-thinking that result from abstract thinking hinders the adolescent from focusing on the consequences of their action. When adolescents feel threatened by the consequences of their actions they tend to develop psychosomatic symptoms, stress, and depression.
The third level in the cognitive development of an adolescent is the enhancement of operational reasoning characteristic. This level of cognitive development enables an individual in thinking on meta-cognition. Through this character the person thinks and reasons about their personal feelings and their perception of these feelings (Lisdahl, et al., 2018). At this level of reasoning, the person can quickly combine physical and emotional responses to develop an imaginary audience. This imaginary audience informs the individual’s detrimental services. Therefore, an adolescent with underlying chronic conditions may deny their conditions for fear of the audience. The audience is very real in meta-cognition and forms a basis for finding solutions. Cognitive development is a major character in the transition from childhood to adulthood. This aspect of development prepares adolescents for future careers as well as helping them reason and explore different aspects of their careers.
The individual equally develops psychosocially. It is characterized by the development of autonomy, future orientation, and identity establishment. Autonomy development leads an adolescent into striving emotionally and economically towards developing independence from adults in the society and family (Luciana, et al., 2018). The development enables this individual to form same-sex peer groups. With time, the person starts taking into consideration their physical appearance. With time, an individual starts to from mix-sex groups and their physical appearance becomes a day to day norm. If an individual fails to establish peer groups they develop stress as they feel rejected. The stage in human development is, therefore, a very important aspect in developing responsible adults in society. At the middle of psychosocial development, an individual starts to develop love relationships as they search for ideal life partners (Luciana, et al., 2018). This includes having crushes on adults. However, with time independence reasoning increases in the late stages of adolescents, this person starts to reason based on personal experience. At the late stages of adolescents, individuals have developed their identity and associate themselves with people of “like mind”. They dissociate themselves from peers who may pull them back in career development.
Conclusion
Humans develop in stages from childhood to adulthood. Linking these two stages of human development is the adolescent stage. The stage is very important as people find their identity in various aspects of their lives. At this stage, people develop emotionally, physically, and cognitively. Therefore, the stage is very important in human development.
Reference
Casey, B. J., Cannonier, T., Conley, M. I., Cohen, A. O., Barch, D. M., Heitzeg, M. M., … & Orr, C. A. (2018). The adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) study imaging acquisition across 21 sites. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 32, 43-54.
Lisdahl, K. M., Sher, K. J., Conway, K. P., Gonzalez, R., Ewing, S. W. F., Nixon, S. J., … & Heitzeg, M. (2018). Adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) study: an overview of substance use assessment methods. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 32, 80-96.
Luciana, M., Bjork, J. M., Nagel, B. J., Barch, D. M., Gonzalez, R., Nixon, S. J., & Banich, M. T. (2018). Adolescent neurocognitive development and impacts of substance use: Overview of the adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) baseline neurocognition battery. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 32, 67-79.