Piaget's Essay: Inside The Teenage Brain

Adolescence is popularly known to be a very tumultuous stage in a person’s life. In the adolescent stage (also coined the identity vs. role confusion stage by theorist Erik Erikson) bodies are changing rapidly, emotions are unfamiliar and unexplainable, and refraining from succumbing to peer pressure is more challenging than ever.

The sensorimotor stage infants develop their schemas through sensory and motor activities. Followed by the preoperational stage where children begin to think symbolically using words, to represent concepts. Next concrete operational stage children display many important thinking skills, like ability to think logically. Finally, formal operational stage young adolescences formulate their operations by abstract and hypothetical thinking. Piaget’s theory provides ample and insightful perspectives, so it remains the central factor of contemporary

During teenage years your brain is under the influence of massive hormonal messages. Our brains are being reshaped. Depending on what the teen is doing will shape our brains that certain way. As a teen, being exposed to drugs, alcohol, inappropriate websites, violent movies/video games will affect and shape our brains and how our future will be by exposing our brains for addiction. There is constant changes in the teenage brain as well as the social and academic changes makes it hard for teens to figure out who they are at such a young age.

Are you under 25? If you are, how well do you think your brain is developed? In the video “The Teen Brain: Under Construction” claims that the brain is finished developing around the age of 25. This assertion starts many arguments on whether an 18 year olds should be considered an adult. Many say that 18 year olds should be considered adults, but many disagree. I deem that 18 year olds should not be considered adults, because their brains are not fully developed yet.

Paul Thompson the author of “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains” claims that teenagers must be charged as juveniles, and not adults because their brains are not fully developed.In Thompson's article, he mainly uses logos and hardly any ethos.”These frontal lobes, which inhibit our violent passions, rash actions, and regulate our emotions, are vastly immature throughout the teenage years(7)”In this quotation, Thompson doesn’t mention who or where he found this information so therefore it makes it weak in ethos. It seems like the only time he does use ethos is when it's reported in the news already and he doesn't have anything to back it up.”In terms of cognitive development, as research on the human brain has shown...young teens are far from

Between the age of two and six years, the brain experiences a rapid growth. By the age of six, the brain is 90% developed as compared to that of the adult. However, the child lacks experience and knowledge. The brain becomes a trainee of what happens around them and imitates what is

Sarah Spinks, in her article “Adolescent Brains are Works in Progress” explains about the critical changes in teenage brain and its effects on them. It reports the studies by various scientist regarding the development of prefrontal cortex, corpus callosum, and cerebellum of the brain along with the phenomenon of pruning.

Author, Maia Szalavitz in her article, Why the Teen Brain is Drawn to Risk, notes that teens are reckless and do things without looking at the consequences first. She supports her claim by first illustrating an example from a research that states teens overestimate risks like sex and drug use. Then Szalavitz quotes Tymula, postal doctoral student at New York University, that teens are likely to engage more in known risks than they doin the known risks. Finally, she cites Valerie Reyna, professor of human development and psychology at Cornell University, on how the teen brain takes twice the amount of time on quantitative reasoning since their prefrontal cortex hasn’t developed fully. Szalavitz’s purpose is to recommend we change our teaching

A common misconception amongst teens is that love is simply saying “I love you” or buying gifts for their partners. However, our generation does not understand the the complexity of the depths of love. There’s reason to believe that teenagers can not experience true romantic feelings for one another, let alone love. Love has so many components to it that adolescents do not comprehend. True romantic feelings have depth and require a better understanding, which teens do not have.

Throughout the day there are many decisions that an adolescent must make. From the moment they get up in the morning till they go to bed at night. Adolescent become more independent and don’t want to be instructed by their parents as much as possible. With diminishing parental control and more of peers influence, adolescent decisions are blurry and irrational. “T. was giving his orders with decision: it was though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the season, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with

From the ages of two and six years of age the average brain gains ten percent in mass (Manis, 2016). Between the ages two and three, the average child possesses almost fifty percent more synapses than the average adult. However, pruning during childhood and adolescents reduces these levels to the normal adult levels. During early childhood, children also improvement in their neural networks. This is caused by increased growth of dendrites and myelination of axon pathways during early childhood. The part of the brain that shows the most growth during early childhood is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for problem solving, decision making, and goal setting. Working memory, inhibition of responses or thoughts, and shifting between mental states or rules and tasks is also handled by the prefrontal cortex. These specific areas are especially important during early childhood. These tasks are important because they allow the child to learn how to perform tasks, and promote future academic

Similarly, both teenage boys and girls struggle with decision making and the impulse of wanting to make an “adult decision.” “In other words, it takes longer for adolescents to figure out when not to do something.” (The Teenage Brain, pg. 55) Teenagers are vulnerable to learning the “wrong” things because they’re curious about the world and sometimes this will get them in trouble. Both male and female teenagers are wanting to be their own people and make their own decisions but often don’t want to face the consequences. “Self-feeling, ambition, exaggeration, and excess – they

The development of the cortex in late teens is closely related to a child 's cognitive stimulation at four years old. Other factors such as cognitive stimulation at eight year old and parental nurturing showed no effect on the brain scans. These results are proof of a sensitive period that determines the development of the cortex. It is extremely important to utilize the proper curriculum during this particular window of opportunity.

An adolescent’s brain is not yet done developing and has not reached the same stage as the brain of an adult. Adolescents should be able to mature in a safe environment, not behind the bars of a prison cell. In her TED Talk, The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, stated, “Medial prefrontal cortex activity in social cognition tasks decreases during adolescence.” (Blakemore) The prefrontal cortex is the cerebral cortex in the frontal lobe of the brain that regulates cognitive behavior, personality, decision making, and social behavior. It is ultimately the conscious decision maker of the body. Blakemore

In the infancy and childhood, when the brain is able to make new and useful connections for where needed, the pruning process takes place and speeds up. As a