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These adolescent health Concepts provided by the Adolescent Health Section of the Office of Family Health Services.
Adolescent Growth & Development
Growth and development is a challenging time for adolescents and their families, the literature presented here is intended to provide professionals and families information about normal development: social, physical, mental, and emotional.
The following charts, fact sheets, articles, and publications on adolescent growth and development have been identified as up-to-date, scientific-based, and dependable information for professionals working with adolescents, parents, and families.
| Charts |
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Stages of Adolescent Development (pdf) |
The State Adolescent Health Resource center has compiled a chart describing the stages of adolescent development by listing characteristic developmental milestones and tasks around physical growth, autonomy, intellectual/cognition, body image, peer group, and identity development.
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| Fact Sheets |
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Facts for Families |
The Amercian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) has developed Facts for Families to provide concise and up-to-date information on issues that affect children, teenagers, and their families. Each adolescent is an individual with a unique personality and special interests, likes and dislikes. However, there are also numerous developmental issues that everyone faces during the adolescent years. |
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Middle School and Early HS |
The AACAP describes the normal feelings and behaviors of the middle and high school years in information sheets for two age groups.
Feelings and behaviors covered include the following four topic areas sexuality; future interests and cognitive development; movement towards independence; morals, values, and self-direction.
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Late HS |
| Research Briefs |
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Developing Healthy Social Skills and Relationships (pdf) |
In the research brief, Developing Healthy Social Skills and Relationships, Child Trends carried out a review of more than 360 research articles that relate to social competency in adolescence with the goal of gaining a better understanding of how adolescents gain the skills to engage in and maintain relationships. Visit the Child Trends website for additional research briefs on a variety of adolescent developmental topics.
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Building a Better Teenager (pdf) |
The brief Building a Better Teenager: A summary of "what works" in Adolescent Development, the authors identified ten findings to help program designers, policy makers, and parents promote positive adolescent development.
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| Scientific Publications |
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Developing Adolescents: A Reference for Professionals (pdf) |
The American Psychological association (APA) has published Developing Adolescents: A Reference for Professionals, a document targeted toward professionals in various fields who work with adolescents.
The information in this text assembles research findings on cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and behavioral aspects of "normal" adolescent development to be easily accessible. Each section presents basic information about what is known about that aspect of adolescent development and suggests roles professionals can play to help support adolescents. This document provides scientifically sound, up-to-date information on what is known about today's youth.
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Raising Teens (pdf) |
Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action, from the Harvard School of Public Health was written in response to the crisis of risks adolescents face today and the opportunity to involve parents in the solution.
The goal of the report is to make this new body of research findings on parenting of adolescence more accessible and useful to those that work with and on behalf of parents, adolescents, and families, so that they, in turn can make it more accessible and useful to parents. The authors focus on the five basics for parenting adolescents: Love and Connect, Monitor and Observe, Guide and Limit, Model and Consult, and Provide and Advocate.
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| Research Articles |
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The Teenage Brain (pdf) |
Two recommended articles on growth and development:
1) The Teenage Brain: A Work in Progress, highlighting new findings that brain development extend into teenage years. |
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Bet You I will! (pdf) |
2) "Bet You I will!": Risk or Experimental Behavior During Adolescents, talks about risk behaviors in youth and discusses the evidence that most deaths and a substantial proportion of adolescent morbidity is related to behavioral and psychosocial characteristics more than to acquired illness or inherited traits.
Authors suggest a paradigm shift in focusing not on the risk behavior but the risk-enhancing situations. "Less emphasis should be placed on the risk and more on the consequences - negative and positive - of one's conduct". Also, rather than focus on preventing behavior, interventions should focus on the healthy youth development by enhancing skills and options.
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