Female college students (N=99) recounted memories of menarche, described menarcheal circumstances, and completed the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ). Found inadequate emotional preparation for menstruation to be associated with negative feelings at menarche. Menarcheal circumstances were not strongly predictive of adult MDQ scores. (Author)

Administered self-concept and academic ability scales to 664 Malaysian adolescents to examine whether self-concept changes with age, not only in the global sense but in various components of the self-concept. Found that the self-concept of adolescent boys changed with age in the direction predicted. The trend was less obvious and less consistent…

Asserts that cognitive skills that develop during adolescence are crucial to successful contraceptive practice and that practitioners must understand special developmental setting in which adolescent sexual growth and experimentation occur in order to impact contraceptive use. Demonstrates how health and medical providers can work together to…

Addresses issue of socialization of the young for participation in society by viewing the family as a micro-society. Congruence between family themes and societally shared meanings is considered, utilizing ideas from the social construction of reality theories of Berger and Luckmann (1966). Three ideal-types of family themes are developed relative…

Issues connected with sexuality create conflict and countertransference dilemmas for staff who work with psychiatric adolescents in a therapeutic community. A system is proposed for articulating and working through these feelings, whereby the residential treatment center allows adolescents to develop a sense of self. (Author/NRB)

Surveyed 485 undergraduate students to determine on which developmental tasks they believed they were currently working. Results indicated students were simultaneously engaged in developmental tasks associated with middle childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, although they identified themselves as being in early adulthood. Results supported…

Presents a successful program for preventing isolation and alienation in early adolescents, developed by The Quest National Center. It uses a multimodal behavior therapy approach that works to combat the delusion of uniqueness many adolescents experience. Lists 11 references. (MD)

Describes The Quest National Center that was formed a decade ago to develop "skills for successful living and learning" in adolescents. The curriculum they have developed is called "Skills for Living," a successful character education program reaching 600,000 students each year. (MD)

Surveyed 100 adolescents to determine how they judged the advantages or disadvantages of being a member of the opposite sex. Females used social standards to identify their judgments while males used sexual standards. (JAC)

Discusses how youngsters learn to think in a recognizable adult fashion about political, social, and humanistic issues. Reports on research on the development of political attitudes over the course of adolescence. Concludes that the major difference between younger and older adolescents is the ability of the latter to think abstractly when…

On March 23 and 24, 1998, the Forum on Adolescence gathered an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners to review the state of knowledge about adolescent development at a workshop entitled "New Research on the Biology of Puberty and Adolescent Development." This workshop focused both on puberty, a set of physical changes rooted in…

Kansas City, Missouri, is one of six sites in a national demonstration project, Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD), which aims to increase basic developmental supports and opportunities available to youth age 12-20 years. The demonstration focuses on five basic elements: adult support and guidance, opportunities for involvement in…

Families (N=20) participated in a Plan Something Together task used to measure three dimensions of family individuation: self-assertion, validation, and permeability. Discusses results in the context of several methodological challenges encountered in analyses of family interaction; discusses general strategies for responding to these challenges.…

This annotated bibliography cites nine references on various aspects of early adolescence. (SJL)