Four longitudinal models are used to present a short review of research into adolescent psychosocial development. This review reveals adolescent development to proceed in a regular manner. This process of regular development suggests that it might be possible to uncover rules of intra-individual development. The aim of this paper is to propose a…

Poor mental health in childhood and adolescence has a significant impact on both physical and mental health throughout life. However, growing evidence suggests that current levels of child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) care are insufficient to meet the needs of many children and adolescents in the United States as evidenced by increasing…

New developments in the field of youth studies are calling for a reorientation of discourses of adolescence away from developmental tropes of transition, crisis, and dysfunction, and towards a more fluid sociocultural framework. Meg Rosoff's acclaimed novel "How I Live Now" (2004) achieves a balance that transcends the pitfalls of…

Adolescence is a period of heightened emotionality. If the adolescents cannot perceive, understand, regulate and function with their emotions it will leave indelible marks on their behaviour and personality. During adolescence (age 12 to 18 yrs), the transition from childhood to adulthood is most important. Children are becoming more independent,…

Adolescent literature often seeks to examine the emotional, psychological, and physical growth of adolescents. Psychologists, sociologists, and childhood studies experts have all claimed the importance of adolescence as a time of identity formation. Erik Erikson provides an apt term for this important phase in an individual's life: moratorium,…

Solitude occurs from childhood to old age. In this special issue introduction, we offer a lifespan perspective on matters of solitude with the aim to point to pertinent issues in the field. We propose that solitude serves important functions that may vary across different times in life and that solitude needs to be considered in the context in…

Adolescence is a time of transition characterized by rapid physical, neurological, cognitive, and socioemotional development. As students move toward adulthood, their bodies and minds change. Those changes affect how they learn and, likewise, should influence how educators interact with youth. This Alliance for Excellent Education report…

The second decade of life is a transition that poses unique developmental challenges for adolescents, and also for their families and teachers, and how well adolescents negotiate this transition will have important implications for later outcomes across the life course. Coming of age, acquiring the status and trappings of adulthood, unfolds over…

Adolescence is a period characterized by well-documented growth and change, including reproductive, social, and cognitive development. Though not unheard of, modern evolutionary approaches to adolescence are still relatively uncommon. Recent treatises in developmental biology, however, have yielded new tools through which to explore human…

The positive youth development (PYD) perspective emphasizes that thriving occurs when individual [double arrow] context relations involve the alignment of adolescent strengths with the resources in their contexts. The authors propose that a key component of this relational process is the strength that youth possess in the form of self-regulatory…

Stanley Hall's (1904) description of adolescence as a time "suggestive of some ancient period of storm and stress when old moorings were broken and a higher level attained" is arguably one of developmental psychology's most vivid and powerful metaphors. Its relatively insignificant contribution to Hall's treatise (Arnett, 2006), the early demise…

This article provides information on adolescent developmental issues and developmentally appropriate interventions that can help mental health practitioners work with adolescents grieving a death loss. Specific areas that are initially covered include core adolescent developmental issues that must be understood, including adolescent developmental…

Research has shown that a hallmark of adolescent development is the growing capacity to interpret human intentionality. In this chapter, the authors examine developmental change in this capacity, which they have termed interpretive thought, in two types of stories, family and autobiographical, told by Canadian youth aged ten to seventeen years.…

Both organismic and intentional self-regulation processes must be integrated across childhood and adolescence for adaptive developmental regulations to exist and for the developing person to thrive, both during the first two decades of life and through the adult years. To date, such an integrated, life-span approach to self-regulation during…

In this autobiographical journey through life-span developmental theory, the author reflects on her life as a player, embedding it in the context of Erik Erikson and Joan Erikson's stages of human development. The author builds on these basic ideas--theory, storytelling, play, and development--and defines them as simply as possible.