Stages of Human Development Adolescence
Stages of Human Development Adolescence
Stages of Human Development Adolescence
Adolescence
Agustin Portillo
Joseph Pipkin
June 8, 2022
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Abstract
There are seven different stages of human development which are Infancy, Early Childhood,
Middle Childhood, Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood, Adulthood, and Late Adulthood. Each
one of those stages is so important in the life of every human because we need them in order for
us to fulfill and/or reach full maturity. This is not something that we choose to do since is
something that happens automatically for everyone. As mentioned, every stage of development is
so important, but there is one stage that for many people such as scientists and psychologists is
interesting to do research on and it is Adolescence. Many things can happen during this stage,
such as trying and living new experiences like starting to take drugs, maybe starting to make a
family, which is common nowadays or even developing mental disorders such as Severe
Depression. This stage is for many the point where their future life will be determined depending
on the relationships they might have, such as friends, romantic relationships, family, and their
environment.
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Adolescence
Every form of life on this earth must go through different stages of processes in their
lives where they are born, grow, mature (sometimes in different ways), develop new ways of
behavior, live new experiences, and at some point, die. Every form of life is quite different in the
way that they go through the different stages and processes for them to succeed or to acquire full
emotional, intellectual, and social capabilities and functioning over the course of a normal life
span, from infancy through old age. It is the subject matter of the discipline known as
developmental psychology" (EB). Humans' stages of development are divided into 7. These
stages are Infancy (from 0 to 2 years), Early Childhood (from 2 to 6 years), Middle Childhood
(from 6 to 11 years), Adolescence (from 11 to 18 years) which is the middle stage, Emerging
Adulthood (18 to 25 years), Adulthood (from 25 to 65 years), and Late Adulthood (from 65 years
and older). Each one of these seven stages has its processes and the way that cognitive behaviors
work such as the way humans behave, think, socialize, and talk. Many factors influence these
processes and cognitive behaviors such as Nature which is how biology such as the genes that we
inherit have an effect/influence many of our cognitive functions, Nurture is when the
environment such as the people around us like our friends have an effect in our way of thinking
and/or behaving, Epigenetics is how the environment has an effect with genes, and Differential
Susceptibility is how environmental experiences has an effect with some inherited genes or how
some experiences affect us either in a good or bad way could also affect us in another type of
related experiences, either in a good or bad way. As mentioned, adolescence is the middle stage
of development and for some people, this stage is like a breakpoint where everything can happen
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at any time without prior notice. Also, for many psychologists and scientists, this is one of the
predictable but also at the same time how so unpredictable this stage can be. Though this stage
can be so interesting and important for human development, unfortunately, some mental
disorders are more common to be developed during this stage such as Depression in girls and
Schizophrenia in boys.
Adolescence is the transition in the middle between middle childhood and entering
adulthood. Therefore, “children who are entering adolescence are going through many changes
(physical, intellectual, personality and social developmental)” (AD) and becoming somehow
more mature to many circumstances by turning into teenagers or adolescents. And also, the
transition of adolescents by becoming even more mature by entering puberty and almost
reaching the full development of their brain. There are many changes in our body and mind
during this stage. Many of those changes can vary between males and females. In males “There
are changes that happen, but they happen gradually and over a period of time, rather than as a
single event” (Hopkins). Since every male/boy can be and have different ways of going through
these changes during this stage, some of the most noticeable and average physical/sexual
changes in boys/males are that they gain height and get taller, and they also start gaining more
fat, pubic hair starts to show up, the penis grows, and they have their first Spermache which is
when they first ejaculate seminal fluid, their voice gets deeper (not always but in many cases),
they start to grow facial hair and also hair under their arms, and they get acne. Girls/females
“experience puberty as a sequence of events, but their pubertal changes usually begin before
boys of the same age” (Hopkins), and as males, each one of them is different when it comes to
all these physical changes during adolescence. Girls’ most noticeable and most common
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physical/sexual changes are that they have their first menstrual period which is also called
menarche, their nipple grows as well as their breasts and hips because of the increase of fat, and
they start to grow some pubic hair, and their height increases.
Now, as mentioned as well as many physical changes that occur in the adolescence stage
of development there are also many mental, intellectual, and/or cognitive changes for boys and
girls. During this stage, when it comes to mental and/or cognitive changes “the developing
teenager gains the ability to think systematically about all logical relationships within a problem.
The transition from concrete thinking to formal logical operations happens over time” (CD).
Some of these changes could be that they can reason things better, they become more emotional
since the Limbic system which oversees emotional impulses matures before the prefrontal cortex
that is in charge of emotional regulation, and they see the world differently depending on their
environments such as their friends and family, among many other changes. Two of the most
common mental/brain changes that occur during puberty are sleep and our behaviors related to
may judge that the possible rewards outweigh the risks. Adolescents respond especially strongly
to social rewards during activities, and they prefer the company of others their same age”
(Human Development). This means that when adolescents reach puberty dopamine increases
leading them to behave in certain ways. In most cases, teenagers tend to behave according to
their peers and/or close related friends. Here is what I called the breaking point because anything
can happen. Let's say for example that one teenager that goes to high school tends to have friends
that go to parties to drink and use drugs and they often miss school because they want to party.
Because of that teenager/adolescent that has those types of friends, they are going most likely to
become like them and maybe even worse. They could become addicts, they could develop
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psychological disorders because of drugs, among many other effects that they might somehow
suffer in the future because of their behaviors as adolescence. On the other hand, if the teenager
tends to have relationships with friends that usually attend school, do their homework, do not use
drugs of any kind, and do not usually go to parties they are most likely to become also like them
and have better chances of having a better and great life in the future because of those behaviors
and relations they had in their adolescence. Therefore, I see this stage of development as a
breakpoint in our lives. Because depending on what we do, with whom do we choose to make a
relationship, depending on what we say, or think our life is going to change and turn either bad
or good where those effects are going to be portrayed in our future when we reach adulthood.
The other most common change during puberty is sleep. During adolescence, teenagers tend to
either not sleep or quit their required hours of sleep for their brains to work properly and at their
full functionality. “Adolescents are notorious for not getting enough sleep. The average amount
of sleep that teenagers get is between 7 and 7 ¼ hours. However, they need between 9 and 9 ½
hours” (Mindell, Owens). There are many reasons why teenagers do not get enough sleep and
those reasons might depend on many factors. The most common factors could be because they
change their sleep schedule or their internal clock. After all, they either have a lot of things to do
such as school assignments, or work because many adolescents already have many obligations in
their lives where they need to work for them to be able to pay for school, a car or even to be able
to provide for their own family because many adolescents have kids already at this point of their
lives. These factors can have a negative effect also, in many factors of their personal life such as
if they are deprived of their sleep most of the time their moods are going to change in a negative
way where they are going to be angry all or most of the time, they could get irritated easily, and
they are not going to be able to regulate their emotions as well as a person that does get enough
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and proper sleep. Therefore, some ways of preventing these things to happen could be just
getting enough sleep by getting to bed early without the phone, television, or any type of
distraction, also trying to avoid caffeine, and not oversleeping on days off from school or work
since their internal clock can change fast and they will have problems while trying to sleep early
when needed.
Unfortunately, there are many disorders that adolescents can develop during this stage.
Two common disorders can be diagnosticated while in adolescence such as Schizophrenia which
most commonly appears in boys and Depression which is most common to appear in girls but
regardless of that, either of those disorders can affect everyone. These two mental disorders
(Depression and Schizophrenia) are closely related since many patients (Around 25%) that have
depression or teen depression “is a serious mental health problem that causes a persistent feeling
of sadness and loss of interest in activities. It affects how your teenager thinks, feels and
behaves, and it can cause emotional, functional and physical problems” (Mayo Foundation). As
mentioned, some of the most noticeable changes in depression are emotions and behaviors. Some
of the main emotional changes could be that the person who suffers from it feels sad most of the
time and cries often for no reason, they feel empty and nothing makes them feel happy, and they
lost interest in a lot of things such as relationships or recreative activities, if they at some point
accomplished something big like finish a major career or getting a great job they will feel like if
they did nothing important, they might also have trouble trying to concentrate, they suffer from
low self-esteem, and if the depression is at some point severe they might have thoughts of death
or suicide. Now, for the behavioral changes, they could be that they either sleep too much or they
could have a hard time when trying to sleep (Insomnia), they can also either lose or gain a lot of
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weight since their appetite can constantly change when going through depression, they always
might feel tired, they rather stay in their rooms away from every type of social interaction, they
care less about their appearance, they start to behave in different and bad ways such as speeding,
drinking too much alcohol, start using drugs, they start doing bad at school by missing classes
and failing with homework and assignments, and again if the depression is severe they might
harm themselves in many ways and at some point they might commit suicide or at least attempt
to do it. Nowadays depression among student adolescents is very common because of the
situation with covid in the past years, and many have been struggling a lot to do good in school
and life overall. Some ways to prevent depression to develop in teenagers or to prevent it to grow
once it is already developed could be to go talk and advert someone unaffected by this disorder
about the situation, and once someone is already adverted about what is happening to start
focusing “on the early detection and treatment of depression, and tertiary prevention attempts to
Human development is the process that humans must go through for them to acquire
and/or achieve full maturity or development of their psychological and cognitive behaviors and
functions such as reasoning, thinking, and learning to behave more maturely in certain
circumstances. There are seven different stages of development which are Infancy, Early
Adulthood, and Late Adulthood. When it comes to Adolescence it is curious and interesting how
people that are going through this stage and go through puberty behave in many different,
predictable but also at the same time in so unpredictable ways because it is known by many
scientists and psychologists that teenagers or adolescents’ behavior can be predictable but that it
will all depend on how they live their lives when they go through this stage. For example, if they
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live their lives by being surrounded by bad people, predictably, they are going to start behaving
in bad ways such as missing school and start taking drugs, among many other related types of
behavior. On the other hand, if the adolescent is surrounded by good people, they are more likely
to go to school, have good grades, and be good or humble with others. One of the most
interesting things about this stage is that every adolescent/teenager has a rate of progression over
these cognitive changes. Some might mature and develop all these mental and physical changes
faster and even at a younger age, and some others might last longer to acquire and/or develop all
those changes or not even be able to go through puberty (delayed puberty) ever or later in their
lives. All stages of human development are so interesting and also really important for everyone
to know more about them because hopefully, this is what we all are going to go through at some
point, and as well as all this has its good change and or processes it also has some bad changes or
developments such as disorders like depression. Therefore, it is really important to know about
all this and to have some preventions also in case someone we know goes through some rough
References
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Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2022, May 3). Teen depression. Mayo
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Mindell, Owens. (n.d.). Sleep in adolescents. Nationwide Children's Hospital. Retrieved June 1,
adolescents
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