The Maturing Adolescent Brain
The maturing brain is also responsible for advanced language development. Teens’ vocabularies continue to grow as they develop an impressive working vocabulary of over 40,000 words. Their improved vocabulary includes the acquisition of words with more abstract meanings, which mirrors their new ability to think in more abstract ways. This expanded vocabulary enables them to verbalize the abstract thoughts they are having. Moreover, teens now understand many more non-literal word meanings, and they begin to use non-literal words to communicate irony and sarcasm. Thus, their ability to think abstractly also allows them to find humor in the world.
Adolescents’ grammatical skills also improve to become more refined and sophisticated. Written language becomes more complex and illustrative because adolescents are required to use this form of communication more and more often as a part of their formal schooling. The quality, quantity, and intensity of formal schooling will influence language development. As with all developmental progress, there can be a great deal of variation among youth.
Unfortunately, some brain development proceeds more slowly than others. Recent research suggests the frontal lobes of the human brain are still developing until the early or mid-20’s (Stuss, 1992; Thompson, Giedd, Woods, et. al, 2000). The brain’s frontal lobes represent the seat of logic and reason and function to enable people to use good judgment when solving problems or making decisions. Therefore, the brain’s frontal lobes serve to balance our impulsive, instinctive, emotional reactions with rational thought. Because the frontal lobe is still maturing, youth are more vulnerable to their reactive emotions and therefore may act without thinking about the consequences of their actions. In particular, they may be more likely to react impulsively when experiencing powerful, intense emotions, and seem to lack the ability to pause in order to “think through” their strong feelings.
A mature person is able to inhibit or delay responding to automatic, reactive, emotional impulses long enough to thoughtfully consider the best course of action. This developmental skill is typically acquired during adolescence; however, until this skill is fully developed, parents may become alarmed and frustrated when their teens make poor decisions, or act impulsively. To add to this frustration, parents may believe their teens “know better,” and this may indeed be true. But their teens may still lack the ability to utilize this knowledge to temper their emotional impulses because their brains haven’t sufficiently matured yet. Sometimes parents will exclaim in frustration, “What were you thinking!?” when in reality, there may have been little thought involved! This is why parental monitoring, guidance, and discipline are so vital throughout the adolescent years. <!—More about this topic can be found in the adolescent stage parental application article (LINK to future article).—>
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