Environmental And Social Factors During Adolescence

Family is also another common strength that can also be a separate individual’s weakness. There is convincing evidence that suggests adolescent depression is largely linked with family environment. This is due to factors such as abuse, neglect, abandonment, mental illness within the household, family conflict, stress and breakdown. As the initial stages of an adolescent’s development is continuously spent with the family, family are therefore the largest factor in defining the individual’s mental health. Although family may be the greatest risk factor, family may also be the most influential strength and protecting factor of adolescent mental health. Families with close relationships provide; increased trustworthiness and openness, feelings of worth and belonging, support, and acceptance. These contrasting statements reaffirm that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and therefore needs different and individualised care from the nurse (Power, Allan & Robinson,

Discuss the concept of adolescence as a social construct and its validity for different cultures.

The purpose of this research paper is to discuss how we learn. How does learning correlate with the hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain. Also, I discussed how the different structures work in relation to the learning process. Furthermore, I have discussed how disease and injury may affect learning. I used several different resources to gather my information including: educational video, scholarly journals, and my textbook.

Adolescence is a critical time of development. During this period there are significant changes in brain development, emotions, cognition, behavior, and personal relationships. It is during this time that most major mental health disorders appear, many of which carry over into adulthood. Behavior patterns such as substance abuse also often develop during this time and may continue throughout adulthood. Many adolescents struggling with mental health issues begin to exhibit symptoms such as acting out at home or in school, showing a decreased interest in activities that they previously enjoyed, or bringing home poor grades. Others ultimately are charged with offenses ranging from status

Adolescents today face a myriad of stressors in their lives that can impact who they are and who they will become. Bio-psychosocial stressors appear to be more prevalent in minority adolescents who reside in lower socioeconomic households. Impoverished neighborhoods experience a great deal of financial difficulties, crime, and single parent homes. Adolescents growing up in these households often have lower grades in school and a lack of self confidence verses their counterparts. Below these stressors will be discussed in greater detail.

Another study was conducted to see how “childhood and adolescent risk factors predict the age of onset of psychosis in patients with and without a familial component” (ENVIRNMT RISK FCTRs). They took 100 patients with a 55 men and 45 women. (AUTHOR), results found that birth complications and cannabis use are predictors for an earlier onset of schizophrenia when the person had non familial schizophrenia. No environmental risk factors were found for an earlier onset in familial

Because of the complexity of the disease, many myths surround schizophrenia. One of these myths is poor parenting causes schizophrenia. Sigmund Freud and psychiatrists since him have regarded the family as the key in the

The National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI, 2015) estimates 1 in 5- 48.8- million adults in the United States are diagnosed with a mental illness each year. Amongst adolescents and children, it is estimated 1 in 5 youth ages 13-18-(21.4%) have, or will have a serious mental illness every year (NAMI, 2015). For children ages 8-15 the prevalence of experiencing a serious mental illness at one point in their life is 13% (NAMI, 2015). Although, children and adolescents are most commonly diagnosed with mood, conduct and anxiety disorders, there are those who occasionally experience psychotic disorders such as early onset schizophrenia.

Parental loss and separation has been connected to a variety of adverse early experiences, including family conflict, socioeconomic disadvantage, neglect and abuse (Rutter, 2006). Exposure to such adversity may lead to a cascade of problematic social development that results in increased vulnerability to psychosis (Read et al, 2005).

Adolescence is both a social and cultural construct as well as biological one, it is the developmental period where one transition from being a child to adult and face biological, psychological, and social challenges. This challenging, and important time in between childhood and adulthood has caused a lot of interest in the psychological field and a number of theories have been developed in order to try and explain the different stages of development. One of the most significant models of psychosocial development was created by Erikson (1963) and the stage related to adolescents is known as the “Identity vs. Role-Diffusion”, where the one is in constant pursuit of a coherent sense of self during the teenage years. When the teenager is unable to put together aspects of themselves they experience role-diffusion. Later on Elkind (1967) introduced his theory of adolescent egocentrism, explaining the increase in preoccupation with oneself during the teenage years. Kohlberg (1969) quickly followed up with his theory of moral development, in order to examine how adolescents develop their ability to solve ethical dilemmas. Another challenge teenagers need to face is mental health. The psychological part of striving for independence, while still struggling with identity formation and having poor coping strategies can have serious consequences and lead to mental illnesses, such as depression which is a growing concern among youths. This essay will further examine to what extent

1. Chapter 9, “Adolescence” Body and Mind,” section Puberty explains the physical and mental changes that teenagers go through, it’s the state in which they transition from children to young adults, incapable of completely just one or the other (Berger, 315). The first changes of puberty, physically-wise, begins around the ages of 9 – 13 years’ old for both boys and girls, which include facial and body hair, deepening of the voice, and of course body growth; such as the hands, feet, face, and private parts. Although genetics do play a role of the timing of these body changes, environmental, emotional, and cultural factors can also affect the time and age when puberty happens. Sometimes it’s delayed, other times the process is quicker than norm. “About two thirds of the variation of age of puberty is genetic, evident not only in families, but also in ethnic groups…precocious puberty is genetic, but the cause of the increase is largely unknown – perhaps childhood obesity or new chemicals in the environment” (Berger, 320-321). Among puberty, adolescents’ nutrition become poor due to body image…In addition, there eating disorders that teenagers discover during their transition, they are more “vulnerable to unhealthy eating,” and unlike childhood, “eating disorders increase drastically during puberty” (Berger, 325). This part of the chapter explains two major and serious types of eating disorders. Anorexia Nervosa is a voluntarily starvation in which a person will starve him or

There are many different variations of language, language that is seen, such as sign language, body language and written language, then there is the language that is heard, such as people speaking. There are over 7,000 spoken languages in the world alone without taking into consideration nonverbal languages. For adults and children alike, this can be overwhelming because in each language there are different behaviour patterns, different registers, different age groups and what is acceptable in one language may not be considered acceptable in another such as how close is too close to stand to someone else. For children who come from families whose first language is not English, this is even more difficult when trying to live somewhere that doesn’t predominately speak their first language, which is just one of the many differences people have to be aware of when considering diversity. This essay will examine the different environmental and circumstantial factors that may influence the development of children and the role that language can play in their lives as they grow, such as what and who children are exposed to, positive and negative influences such as adults and other children and the lifelong impact these surroundings have on the child.

Currently, there is a broad consensus that a negative correlation exists between socioeconomic status and mental illness in adolescents. By establishing the specific socioeconomic factors that induce mental illnesses in youth, disorders can be predicted early on. Many experts believe that wealthy children are likelier to develop mental health problems as they feel pressure to succeed or are isolated by their parents (Luthar 2003). However, it has been proven that poorer adolescents are more likely to develop mental illnesses than wealthier adolescents are. A negatively perceived social status, low parental education and income, and lack of social mobility have been proven as important socioeconomic causes of mental illnesses in adolescents.

Adolescence is a period of physical and psychological development from the onset of puberty to maturity. The adolescent is no longer a child, but they haven’t yet reached adulthood. Adolescence is considered people between the ages of 13 and 21. Puberty is the physical maturing that makes an individual capable of sexual reproduction. Puberty is important to adolescence because when a child hits puberty, that’s when the child is becoming an adolescent. Puberty is a big part of an adolescent’s life.

Adolescence is the distinct transitional stage between childhood and adulthood in human development, extending primarily over the teenage years and terminating legally when the age of majority is reached (Rathus, 2014). However in some instances, this biological, cognitive, social and emotional maturity may not be reached until a later stage and may be dictated by gender. Adolescence is characterised by rapidly changing and unpredictable behaviour (Freud, as cited in Rathus 2014), heightened and unstable emotions (Hall, as cited in Rathus 2014), disturbances in identity, the gradual development of one’s moral reasoning (Kohlberg, as cited in Rathus, 2014) and the gradual establishment of one’s independence. Several of these changes may occur at differing phases in adolescent growth. This development is categorized into three separate stages; early adolescence, middle adolescence, and late adolescence. Early Adolescence, commencing from the ages of eleven or twelve until the age of fourteen, comprises of several features such as rapid biological development and maturity, heightened stress levels and limited coping capabilities. On the other hand, middle adolescence, from the approximate age of fourteen to sixteen, involves the gradual cease of biological change, an increase in coping strategies and declined stress levels. Furthermore, late adolescence, commencing from the age of sixteen until the age of eighteen or nineteen, encompasses physical maturity, whereby the