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Adolescence MODULE 11 183Cognitive Development in Adolescence11-3 How does adolescent reasoning differ from that of younger children?ReasoningAs we move through our childhood, we progress through a sequence of increasingly sophisticated cognitive abilities. By the time adolescence begins, we are approaching what developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (pronounced pee-ah-zhay) called the formal operational stage, when we may develop adult thinking and reasoning. Formal logic, abstract thinking, and hypothetical reasoning are now possible, and these changes represent growth in cognitive skills. Adolescents with these skills don%u2019t just think more, they think differently. Trying to teach a typical 6-year-old calculus would be futile because sexual content to your feeds, whether you want it or not. Adolescence is also a time when biology and cognition work in tandem unlike ever before; teens who are already experiencing an increase in hormones released during puberty may find it hard not to think about sex.Teens receive a decidedly mixed message advocating both abstinence and safe sex. Rarely discussed are the tremendous emotional risks of committing oneself sexually to another person. Is it any wonder that making decisions is sometimes so difficult, especially when teens are still working to complete the development of their decisionmaking skills (as we will see in the next section)? The good news is that many teens seem to be handling this pressure better than their counterparts did a few years ago. The rate of teen pregnancy in the United States has been falling since the early 1990s, and in 2021 it reached an all-time low.18 It appears that teens are delaying engaging in sexual activity. The number of high school students who say they are sexually active has been steadily declining over the past few decades.19Meanwhile, those who are sexually active do a better job of protecting themselves against unwanted pregnancy.20%u201322A final aspect of physical development in adolescence relates to continued maturation of the brain, a process that begins before birth. After puberty, the brain becomes more efficient, as unused connections among nerve cells in the brain disappear.23 The frontal lobes of the brain%u2014responsible for planning, judgment, and controlling impulses%u2014are the last to complete this development, though this process isn%u2019t fully completed until about 25 years of age.241. ____________ is a young woman%u2019s first menstruation, and ____________ is considered the male counterpart.2. Development of the testes in males is a(n) ____________ sexual characteristic.a. primaryb. secondaryc. tertiaryd. unusual3. The direction of our enduring sexual attraction is called sexual ____________.MAKE IT STICK!JEAN PIAGET [pee-ah-zhay] (1896%u20131980) Pioneer in the study of developmental psychology who introduced a stage theory of cognitive development that led to a better understanding of children%u2019s thought processes. Farrell Grehan/CORBIS/ Corbis via Getty ImagesMark Heath/CartoonStock Ltd.%u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.