Adolescent to Adulthood Development

This article explores the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development that occurs during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. It discusses the changes that occur in the body, the progression in thinking abilities, and the development of autonomy and identity. The article also discusses Piaget's theory of cognitive development and its implications for teaching practice. Overall, it provides a comprehensive understanding of the developmental milestones and challenges faced during this stage of life.

Running head: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1
Adolescent to Adulthood Development
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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 2
Adolescence is a period in the lifetime of an individual where changes on the body occur
as he/she grows from childhood to adulthood. There are several changes that occur physically,
cognitively, emotionally, sexually, and socially during this stage of life and it relates to the way
ones relates to the world.
Physical Development
Physical development in the adolescent can be categorized into three developmental
milestones according to the ages. These categories include; ages of 10 to 13 years (early
adolescence), 14 to 17 years (middle adolescence) and 18 to 21 years (late adolescent).
Early Adolescents
This is the stage where children begin to grow very fast. Some of the changes observed in
the body compositions include; hair grows around the genitals and under the arms, breast
enlargement and development in females, testicles enlargement in males. The change may start a
year or two earlier in girls than in boys. Most of the girls may begin having their periods at the
age of 12 years that is on an average of 2 to 3 years after the breast developments. Most of the
children at this age do question their gender identity. At this time a young person’s concentrate
more on thinking about themselves especially their body changes. The children at this stage
increase the needs for privacy and try as much as they can to be independent of their families and
peers (Lappe et al, 2015).
Middle adolescents
This is where physical changes continue for the puberty stage. Puberty-related changes
occur in this stage and they start the spurting growth. Boys develop acne, some have cracking
voices as they try to lower their voices. This is the time when most girls have a regular period.

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Most of the teens at this age become more interested in sexual relationships and romantic
activities. At the middle adolescents, the teens may start having more arguments with the family
members as the needs more privacy and be independents (Lancaster, 2017).
Late adolescents
This is where young people have acquired complete physical developments like attain
full adult heights and adapt to the changes in their bodies. At late adolescence, the young
person’s can control their impulses and they are able to differentiate between risks and rewards.
These are teens entering the adulthood and thus have strong senses about their individuality and
are aware of their own values as well as focusing on their future based on their decisions
(Symons, Ponnet, Emmery, Walrave & Heirman, 2017).
Cognitive development
This is the progression in the way of thinking from childish to adult thinking.
Early adolescent
In this stage, an adolescent thinks in a complex manner and focuses on personal decision
making both at home and at school. Here the child develops a sense of questioning the authority
and the standards of the society. The teens at this age can express his/her views concerning
several topics in a formal and logically way. For instance, a child begins to talk about the groups,
games or sports which he/she prefers (Meredith, 2015).
Middle adolescent
The teens here questions and analyses almost everything extensively. They now have
some knowledge to use more complex thinking capacity. A young person starts developing

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his/her own code of ethics. A teen at this period, begins to develop one’s identity, thinks in
different possibilities, can make own plans, have long-term thinking, consider future possible
goals and is interested in others peoples relationships (Amso & Scerif, 2015).
Late adolescent
Here, thinking complexity concentrate on personal decisions and self-centered concepts.
The thoughts increase in global concepts, for example, justice, politics, patriotism, and history. A
young person now develops intolerance and debating topics with opposing views. It is the time
one start making career views and thinks on the emerging roles in society (Marek, Hwang,
Foran, Hallquist & Luna, 2015).
Psychosocial development
These are the developmental responsibilities the focus on autonomy development, the orientation
of the future and identity establishment.
Early adolescent
This stage of the adolescent is when a teen struggles to be both economic and
emotionally independent from the guardians. The teenager forms peer groups of the same-sex
and tends to have no interest in parental advice and family activities. The peers have a strong
influence and often idealized towards the adolescent transitions. Here the same sex-peer groups
try to rhyme in clothing, language, hairstyles and other accessories. The adolescent who seems
not involved in any of the peers is likely to have psychological problems at this stage. The
adolescents shift their attention from focusing on themselves and adopt the ethical values and
codes of larger peers and parental groups (Berenbaum, Beltz & Corley, 2015).

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Middle adolescents
The peer group at this period expresses the primary social role for the adolescent and the
peer's groups are composed of both sex. The teenagers have short-term love relationships
because they try to search for the perfect partner. Some of the adolescents admire the adults and
the family conflicts are very frequent. The adolescent begins to evaluate their own experiences
relate to the others and develop concern for other peoples relationship (Troop-Gordon, 2017).
Late adolescents
At this stage, the adolescent develops a different identity from their parents and they
move away from their peer groups and struggle to attain their adults’ status. The conflicts of the
adolescents with their parents are minimal at this stage and they begin to enter into permanent
and responsive relationships with quality behaviors and mature personal values (Verzeletti,
Zammuner, Galli & Agnoli, 2016).
Research Approach: Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory
Piaget’s theory of cognitive developments involves a comprehensive study of human
intelligence. Piaget’s proposed that the human cognitive development involves a series w of four
stages; sensorimotor, concrete operational, preoperational and formal operational stage. The
formal operational stage of Piaget’s theory is the one which involves cognitive development
from childhood to adulthood. The involved ages in the formal operational stage range from 11 to
approximately 21 years which is the adolescent period (Barrouillet, 2015)
Formal Operational stage

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In this stage, Piaget stated that an individual can perform deductive and hypothetical reasoning
and he/she thinks in abstractive concepts via logical use of symbols. These hypothetical thoughts
involve situations like “what if” which are called counterfactual thoughts and are not embedded
in reality. Abstract thinking can be expressed where a child thinks specifically and concretely
while considering the repercussions and outcomes of their actions. In this stage, an adolescent
develops meta-cognition which is an ability that allows them to monitor and reason about their
thinking processes. A child acquires confident to solve problems even if it means to use trial- and
error – methods. The person has the capacity to solve a problem in a methodical and logic
manner (Carey, Zaitchik & Bascandziev, 2015).
These Children in the primary school use the inductive reasoning, concludes on situations
from the specific facts and personal experiences. The adolescent who is mostly the secondary
schools use deductive reasoning whereby, they draw their conclusion on situations logically from
the abstracts concepts. They acquire this ability due to their cognitive capacity to think
hypothetically. The adolescent at the formal operational stage starts to think in a quality logic
way and more likely a scientist thinking and can devise methods to solve problems and logically
test the opinions. The adolescent in this stage understands love, can develop a hypothesis, and
can make systemic conclusions on the best way to solve problems; they can make the bests
guesses, logical proofs, and values (Siegler, 2016).
Experiments of Piaget
Piaget conducted one of the experiments to evaluate the cognitive ability in children of
different ages to use a scale and varying weights. The experiments involved balancing the
hooked weight by the ends of the scale. This is where the children had to apply their formal
operational thinking abilities to understand that the balancing was being affected by both the

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heaviness of the weights and the distance from the pivot of the scale. The children of the age
between 3 to 5 years could not understand the use of the balancing scale while those from the age
of 6 to 9 years were able to balance the weights by ends of the scale but they were unable to
realize that significance of the distance. The children from the early adolescent to the late
adolescent were able to understand and comprehend the relationship between the location of the
weights and the distance and successfully implemented their hypothesis on the use of the
balancing scale (Siegler, 2016).
Implications for Teaching Practice
Teachers can use apply Piaget’s theory so that to understand them and to help them
deliver the best knowledge to the students. As Piaget’s theory explores the cognitive
development that occurs to the children from preschool ages through the early adolescent to the
late adolescent can be helpful to the teachings profession from lower educations to higher
educations. The teacher can apply the Piaget’s theory and discuss whether the subjects or the
syllabus would be suitable for the student’s level of the learning and ages or not (Gregory,
Clawson, Davis & Gerewitz, 2016).
The most recent research has shown that children of the same age and in the same grade
perform differently on the exams and this leads to measurements of subtraction fluency and basic
additions. Through the understanding of the children development especially cognitively as per
the Piaget’s theory, enables a teacher to know about the student's levels of performance in some
areas like arithmetic operations. The children can perform accurately in the arithmetic operations
especially while in the stages like concrete operations and preoperational as described on
Piaget’s theory. A child on the concrete operational stage of cognitive development will handle
both subtractions and additional problems more fluently (Lubans et al, 2017).

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A teacher is expected to provide an adolescent with proper educations concerning their
emotional, physical, cognitive and psychosocial development which occur during this period of
learning. Explaining to the adolescent about their bodily changes, emotions, and psychosocial
behaviors will help them be aware of the unrealistic expectations and it will smoothen their
process of learning. It will help the adolescent and the youths to achieve their youthful goals in
education and secure their identity of who they are and avoid too many questions. Educating the
adolescent about the developmental stages as teachers will help them to solve the conflict, adhere
to their parents’ advice and learn positive model health behaviors (Lubans et al, 2017).
There are seven standards of the Australian Professional standards of Teachers (APST)
which all the domains of teachers are expected to adhere to. Teachers demonstrating these
standards and with the knowledge of childhood development in their specific context of teaching
will be able to deliver the quality and healthier education to their students. Teachers with quality
standards demonstrate their expertise and reflect learning outcomes from the students they teach.
The seven standards in the domains of teaching include;
Standard 1: Understand the student and their way of learning.
Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it.
Standard 3: Plan and implement effective learning and teaching.
Standard 4: Creation of safe and maintenance of supportive learning environments.
Standard 5: Assess report and provide feedback on student learning.
Standard 6: Ensure provision of professional learning.

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Standard 7: Engage other colleague, parents/guardians and the community in professionalism
(Luft, Dubois, Nixon & Campbell, 2015).
Highly qualified teachers will use the knowledge from the childhood development
approach and the Australian standards of teachers professional to work independently and
produced a highly skilled student, have a conducive classroom for teaching and collaboratively
improve their practice through other colleagues (Luft et al, 2015).
During the teaching practice, the teachers demonstrate their understanding and
knowledge of implications for being aware of their students’ physical, cognitive and
psychosocial characteristics. The teachers understand the principles inclusions and differentiate
several teaching strategies to meet the particular learning of student according to their range of
abilities. The teacher acquires a full understanding of the curriculum, design lessons to meet the
requirements of the curriculum, and demonstrate the ability to interpret the student’s date to
evaluate learning while modifying their teaching practice. During teaching practice, teachers also
learn and gain knowledge on how to handle students with disabilities and ensure they give them
access all available opportunities and choices in their education as in the students without
disabilities (Daniel, Wang & Berthelsen, 2016).

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