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- Renata Arrington Sanders, MD, MPH, ScM
- Division of General Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.
Author Disclosure
Dr Sanders has disclosed no financial relationships relevant to this article. This commentary does not contain discussion of unapproved/investigative use of a commercial product/device.
Educational Gap
The cognitive and psychosocial development of adolescents is variable. Asynchrony among physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development may limit the adolescents’ ability to perceive and judge risk effectively and may result in adolescent views that are incongruous with parents or guardians. Pediatricians can help adolescents to transition through this important developmental period while simultaneously providing parents with appropriate guidance and support.
Objectives
After completing this article, readers should be able to:
Understand the stages of cognitive and psychosocial adolescent development.
Understand the role of the imaginary audience and the personal fable in adolescent development.
Recognize the implications of early pubertal timing.
Be able to communicate effectively with adolescents and address developmental concerns that may arise.
Cognitive Development
Adolescence marks the transition from childhood into adulthood. It is characterized by cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional development. Cognitive development is the progression of thinking from the way a child does to the way an adult does.
There are 3 main areas of cognitive development that occur during adolescence. First, adolescents develop more advanced reasoning skills, including the ability to explore a full range of possibilities inherent in a situation, think hypothetically (contrary-fact situations), and use a logical thought process.
Second, adolescents develop the ability to think abstractly. Adolescents move from being concrete thinkers, who think of things that they have direct contact with or knowledge about, to abstract thinkers, who can imagine things not seen or experienced. This allows adolescents to have the capacity to love, think about spirituality, and participate in more advanced mathematics. Youth who remain at the level of a concrete thinker focus largely on physically present or real objects in problem solving and, as a result, may …
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