A Gain and a Loss: Brain Maturation in Adolescence
Reading: The Latest Assault on Teens: It's Their Brains by Mike Males, Los Angeles Times, 17 Feb 2002. (Link attached in files)
New research shows that the teenage brain is - as many parents have long suspected - unlike the adult brain. They develop later than once thought and a second growth spurt offers adolescents a chance to learn new behavior.
Neurological evidence shows us that early in adolescence a young person access executive functions in the pre-frontal cortex for the first time. With these changes, the ability to learn new languages fluently without an accent is lost, at about the same time that the ability to organize their lives more effectively in time and space is gained (about the age of 12).
This is also the age that algebraic variables (abstractions) begin to make sense, as well as literary abstractions, such as narrative symbols.
At a later time in adolescence, emotional constructs such as the impact of today's actions influence the construction of one's future.
But these skills do not happen overnight, and as they are developing, the time and space constructs of the adolescent can be chaotic. If we think of early adolescents experimenting with control of time (relationships between past and future) in the same way that we think about a one-year-old child stumbling while they continue to experimenting with walking, then some of the bunbling of adolescents makes developmental sense.
Organization in Time and Space
As mentioned, brain connections between the frontal cortex, largely responsible for executive needs, and the limbic system, the site of emotional response, are established late in adolescence - and boys are about a year behind girls in this development. This is related to difficulties that adolescents have with time and space management.
Perhaps the timing of middle school is geared more towards girls than boys. Middle school and high school demand a significant increase in the ability to organize time and space (multiple courses, multiple teachers, friends no longer in their classes), which kids who are late-bloomers in brain maturation may not be ready for. In addition, the course content is more complex.
Remembering the varying rate of development of adolescents, it is no surprise that the brains of some kids are not ready for this complexity, and need helpful structures to assist them learn in this more complex environment. If you add the probable lack of time and space modeling for some kids in former classrooms or at home, the need for assistance in what appear to be mundane matters may be strong.
Question to answer:
Can you describe a situation for a learner in middle school, for example, whose poorly developed sense of time and or space would impede their learning - perhaps in a school setting, or with respect to responsibilities at home or to themselves?
Sample Solution