Cognitive Development in Adolescents and Young Adults

Cognitive Development in Adolescents and Young Adults essay explored the progress of thinking from the way a child thinks and the way a young adult think. It is characterized by cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional development.

Cognitive Development in Young Adults 

At the beginning of adolescence, the brain is nearly full size. Therefore, a child’s ability to think is not as advanced as how a young adult think. Another reason adolescent thinks differently than young adults is the lack of inexperience in life. Adolescent brains and Adults use different parts of their brains. As the Adolescent Brain Development research states, the teen brain uses the lower part of the brain, and the adult brain uses the top part of the brain in which this uses more logic whereas; the teen brain uses the emotional part of the brain.

Furthermore, the way an adolescent brain works lead to risk taking behaviors common in teen behaviors because a growing person pursue a better chance of taking risks and seeing what they can and cannot get away with. The overconfidence in adolescents provides them to have more of a risky behavior. Adolescents use the lower part of the brain which I stated before, this is more of the emotional part of the brain. This causes them to not use the effective decision-making needed to make logical choices. 

Teens are more likely to report being in a good mood when with friends and a bad mood when in adult-regulated gatherings. Adolescents are generally still growing, and years go by as they start using more parts of their brain and start to gain knowledge, and logic. Now, there is a difference in cognitive developments in gender. Sex differences in the brain are reflected in the somewhat different developmental timetables of girls and boys. By most measures of sensory and cognitive development, girls are slightly more advanced: vision, hearing, memory, smell, and touch are all more acute in female than male.

Additionally, cognitive development in young adult females show more of advantage in verbal fluency, motor skills, accuracy, & perceptual speed. Whereas, males have more of an advantage in memory, and mathematical abilities. As an adolescent grows, their brain starts to develop as do their height. In adulthood, you start to gain more postformal thought, reflective judgment, irreflective reasoning, & reflective reasoning. Adults analyze the real-life word and gain knowledge on how to fix certain problems and make reasonable decisions.

Continuously, as we grow older, we develop new skills, hobbies, and adult interests. We start to understand our limitations and make better decisions. Cognitive Development in Adolescence occurs differently from the ages of 6-12, along with ages 12-18. They start to use different parts of their brain and uses more of their abilities. They further develop critical thinking skills as well as self-esteem. Gaining high self-esteem as we grow older means we believe in yourself and the worth being. Although, Adults tend to develop lower self-esteem then adolescents. Some of the reasoning is due to the fact of feeling like they are a failure, comparison, & competition, etc.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cognitive development in adolescents is one of the most important progresses in person's life. It is a progress of thinking from the way a child thinks & the way a young adult think. As stated in the paragraphs above, adolescents use more of the emotional area of the brain whereas; young adults use more of the logical part of the brain in which they gain sense of logic and better decision-making. Adolescents usually are interested in friends and social expectations. Whereas, young adults are out there in the real world and develop a sense of a new way of surviving in the real-world.

References

• Are there any differences in the development of boys' and girls' brains? (n.d.). Retrieved from zerotothree.org: https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1380-are-there-any-differences-in-the-development-of-boys-and-girls-brains
• Sanders, R. A. (2013, August). Adolescent Psychosocial, Social, and Cognitive Development. Retrieved from pedsinreview: https://pedsinreview.aappublications.org/content/34/8/354
• Why Are Teen Brains Designed for Risk-taking. (2015, June 09). Retrieved from psychologytoday.com: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wide-wide-world-psychology/201506/why-are-teen-brains-designed-risk-taking