The adolescent brain

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by suboptimal decisions and actions that give rise to an increased incidence of unintentional injuries and violence, alcohol and drug abuse, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Traditional neurobiological and cognitive explanations for adolescent behavior have failed to account for the nonlinear changes in behavior observed during adolescence, relative to childhood and adulthood. This review provides a biologically plausible conceptualization of the neural mechanisms underlying these nonlinear changes in behavior, as a heightened responsiveness to incentives while impulse control is still relatively immature during this period. Recent human imaging and animal studies provide a biological basis for this view, suggesting differential development of limbic reward systems relative to top-down control systems during adolescence relative to childhood and adulthood. This developmental pattern may be exacerbated in those adolescents with a predisposition toward risk-taking, increasing the risk for poor outcomes.     

Sex differences in the adolescent brain

Adolescence is a time of increased divergence between males and females in physical characteristics, behavior, and risk for psychopathology. Here we will review data regarding sex differences in brain structure and function during this period of the lifespan. The most consistent sex difference in brain morphometry is the 9–12% larger brain size that has been reported in males. Individual brain regions that have most consistently been reported as different in males and females include the basal ganglia, hippocampus, and amygdala. Diffusion tensor imaging and magnetization transfer imaging studies have also shown sex differences in white matter development during adolescence. Functional imaging studies have shown different patterns of activation without differences in performance, suggesting male and female brains may use slightly different strategies for achieving similar cognitive abilities. Longitudinal studies have shown sex differences in the trajectory of brain development, with females reaching peak values of brain volumes earlier than males. Although compelling, these sex differences are present as group averages and should not be taken as indicative of relative capacities of males or females.     

Treatment of aggression in a brain injured adolescent

A traumatically brain injured (TBI) adolescent exhibited physical aggression requiring physical intervention. Aggressive behavior was eliminated in 2 weeks when a point system with response cost and contingent home visits were used. The point system alone maintained aggression at zero episodes for 4 weeks. In addition to eliminating aggression, the point system increased attendance to therapies and classes, waking up on time, and prosocial behaviors.     

Minimal brain dysfunction in adolescent and young adult psychiatric inpatients

This paper presents data on a study of 100 consecutive young adult psychiatric admissions to Horsham Hospital, to determine the incidence of minimal brain dysfunction in this population, to define the subcategories of common psychiatric presentation, and to compare these data with those from the companion study conducted by our research group of fifty consecutive adolescent psychiatric admissions, reported by Horowitz, 1981.     

儿童青少年的信息加工及其脑机制研究

对十多年来儿童青少年信息加工发展的机制以及脑机制的研究进行了总结,采用减法反应、指数函数、双曲线函数、微观发生设计、横断设计、脑超慢波等方法,研究了信息加工速度、信息加工策略、信息加工的空间、信息加工的脑机制等问题,对信息加工的发展机制、内部过程进行了讨论,并提出了信息加工的模型和策略发展的模型.     

Neurobehavioral deficits,adolescent traumatic brain injury,and transition to college

Outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been frequently evaluated for adults, although there has been minimal research on adolescents with TBI. It has been argued that TBI sequelae may be more difficult for adolescents to adjust to given developmental changes in physical (puberty), interpersonal (self-concept), and environmental domains (transition to college). In addition, it is commonly acknowledged that moderator variables such as psychiatric history, family functioning, substance use, and sexuality impact functional outcome following TBI, although it is often difficult to objectively evaluate these variables. The current study examined relationships among TBI-related deficits, moderator variables, and academic outcomes for six adolescents transitioning to college. The findings suggest that it may not be appropriate to predict functional outcome based solely on objective neuropsychological results. However, moderator variables appear to have a more direct relationship with outcome, depending on the moderator variable and the individual.     

Suicide and the rural adolescent

The rural family, with its particular stressors, is increasingly vulnerable to overwhelming crises. Adolescent suicide, although rare, may result from or add to that stress. The intent of this study was to identify and examine specific stressors with which a rural adolescent must deal, the coping mechanisms utilized, and when these fail, how it leads to suicidal behavior. Therapeutic modalities available to the troubled adolescent were examined and additional services suggested.     

The impact of periventricular brain injury on reading and spelling abilities in the late elementary and adolescent years.

The present study was designed: (1) to investigate the long-term consequences of both the presence and the severity of periventricular brain injury (PVBI) on intellectual, academic, and cognitive outcome in extremely-low-birthweight (ELBW: < 1,000 grams) children at a mean age of 11 years; and (2) to determine the nature of the underlying difficulties associated with academic problems in these children. The results indicated that ELBW children without PVBI performed as well as full-term children on intelligence, academic, and cognitive ability tests. In contrast, ELBW children with mild and severe PVBI achieved significantly lower scores than either ELBW children without PVBI or children who were born at term. A second analysis indicated that, after accounting for Full Scale IQ, working memory and phonological processing were significant predictors of reading and spelling performance in ELBW children. These findings suggest that the presence and severity of PVBI, and not ELBW status alone, is associated with performance on tests of intelligence, and academic and cognitive functioning, and that some of the same factors known to be associated with learning disabilities in full-term children contribute to learning disabilities in ELBW children.     

Tutoring Techniques in Algebra

Although one-to-one tutoring has been regarded as the most effective method of teaching (Bloom, 1984), surprisingly little is understood about tutoring expertise. Much educational research focuses on classroom teaching, whereas the few studies that focus on one-to-one tutoring do not offer a precise information-processing account of this skill. This article describes our initial attempts to study one-to-one tutoring. The goal of our research is to construct a detailed cognitive model of the reasoning and knowledge of an expert human tutor. The method we have employed is a variant of knowledge engineering. We videotaped tutoring sessions with expert teachers, subjecting them to a detailed analysis aimed at abstracting the tutor's knowledge structures. In this article, we describe some important tutoring techniques we have isolated using these methods. We discuss several dimensions along which tutors appear to be intelligent planners and problem solvers. Finally, we note several implications of our research, including its potential impact on the construction of intelligent computer-based tutoring systems.     

Reduced N400 semantic priming effects in adult survivors of paediatric and adolescent traumatic brain injury

The immediate and long-term neural correlates of linguistic processing deficits reported following paediatric and adolescent traumatic brain injury (TBI) are poorly understood. Therefore, the current research investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited during a semantic picture-word priming experiment in two groups of highly functioning individuals matched for various demographic variables and behavioural language performance. Participants in the TBI group had a recorded history of paediatric or adolescent TBI involving injury mechanisms associated with diffuse white matter pathology, while participants in the control group never sustained any insult to the brain. A comparison of N400 Mean Amplitudes elicited during three experimental conditions with varying semantic relatedness between the prime and target stimuli (congruent, semantically related, unrelated) revealed a significantly smaller N400 response in the unrelated condition in the TBI group, indicating residual linguistic processing deviations when processing demands required the quick detection of a between-category (unrelated) violation of semantic expectancy.     

Algebra Mal-Rules and Cognitive Accounts of Error

We report an empirical study of elementary algebra errors, conducted in three separate schools. The errors are diagnosed using mal-rules, as proposed by Sleeman (1984, 1,985). Our analysis uncovers the following properties of algebra mal-rules: The frequency of mal-rules is severely skewed, there are many infrequent mal-rules and few frequent ones; mal-rules are very unstable, students typically use mal-rules very irregularly; different mal-rules have explanatory power in different schools (many of our most powerful mal-rules are previously unreported); mal-rule diagnosis Is more successful with more skilled students; students' confidence ratings do not partition the total set of mal-rules, every mal-rule we find is associated with high confidence ratings by at least one student. The Implications of our data for cognitive theories of error generation are discussed. Contrary to commonplace assumptions, we argue that It is impossible to make a clear distinction between slips and mistakes; most errors depend on properties of the knowledge base and the cognitive architecture. Errors In a procedural skill cannot be assumed to be purely syntactic In orgin.     

On the adolescent neurosis

The author discusses the lifelong impact of adolescence in shaping the adult psyche. Some patients may appear to be as influenced by conflicts of adolescence and the individual solutions arrived at during this period as they are by conflicts and solutions of the oedipal phase, the author maintains. The subphases of early, middle, and late adolescence are discussed both in terms of a review of the psychoanalytic literature and of representative works of literary fiction. Illustrative clinical vignettes are presented as well.     

The Divine Truth of Mathematics and the Origins of Linear Algebra

In a work ahead of its time the German mathematician Hermann Grassmann (1809–1877) published in 1844 one of the landmark works in mathematics, his Ausdehnungslehre or Calculus of Extension. It contained the main theorems that make up what is today called linear algebra. The significance of the book was not recognized at first and it took even longer before any connection was publicly made between this work and Grassmann's training for the ministry. This was in spite of the strong influence on his thinking in general that he described coming from his teacher at Berlin, the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.     

Family interaction and the course of adolescent psychopathology: An analysis of adolescent and parent effects

This study focused on evaluating the utility of three family measures for predicting outcome in a sample of disturbed but nonpsychotic adolescents: (a) the affective quality of the adolescents' voice tone when communicating with his/her parents; (b) the predominant affective quality of the parents' voice tones when communicating with the adolescent, and (c) the affective quality of the content of the parents' verbalizations to the adolescent. These measures were derived from 5-minute face to face discussions between parents and their disturbed adolescent. Results indicated that adolescents using positive or neutral voice tones during emotionally laden discussions with their parents tended to show relatively adequate levels of psychosocial adjustment as young adults, while adolescents using exclusively negative voice tones tended to show sufficient adjustment difficulties in early adulthood to warrant diagnoses within the extended schizophrenia spectrum. Although adolescent voice tone was associated with outcome, considering both adolescent and parent affective response led to improved prediction, with consideration of adolescent and parent variables leading to accurate prediction of outcome for 30 of the 33 sample cases.