What Changes During Adolescence?

Take our Video Gaming Test

Find a therapist to support kids and teens

Teens experience a "neurological puberty," with brain circuits pruned and rebuilt by use.

The prefrontal cortex matures last, causing wide variation in teen attention and impulse control.

Motivation and autonomy boost teens' willingness to use attention-improving strategies.

Letting teens choose focus strategies increases their success and independence over time.

The teen brain is not a junior adult brain. It is profoundly different from the brain of either a child or an adult. The most significant of those differences is that the prefrontal cortex, where developing attention/focus networks reside, is the last part of the brain to wire fully into adult levels of efficiency. This is normal development and not pathological. It does, though, sometimes result in mistaken diagnoses or inappropriate medications/treatments.

We readily understand that physical puberty unfolds at different rates. Some teens grow early and others later, so reassure your child that their time will come. Help them understand that the teen years also bring a neurological puberty, a time of transition when their brains are dramatically remodeled by neuroplasticity. The circuits that have not been used are pruned away to provide more of the brain’s limited resources of oxygen and nutrients to the networks that have been or are being activated (used), which is within their control. The region most actively under construction is the prefrontal cortex, the area where executive functions such as sustained attention, organization, impulse control, planning, and judgment are developing.

The prefrontal cortex is the last major brain system to undergo rapid maturation, with its high responsiveness to activation continuing into the mid-twenties. Just as with physical growth, the timing of this brain maturation varies widely. Two teens of the same age may differ significantly in the development of their attention control systems, not because of intelligence........

© Psychology Today