THE TEENAGE BRAIN

Describe a typical teenager.What does a typical teenager do?

How does a typical teenager behave? In what ways do you think teenagers behave differently from adults? Were you a typical teenager?Why/why not?

Pre-Reading Questions
When is your earliest class hour? Are you happy with it or would you prefer it to be at a later hour? What time do students at primary and secondary school wake up to catch their classes? Do you like this system or is it possible to make some changes for them to arrange these class hours?

What are the differences between teenagers and adults?

Teenagers are more emotional than adults

Teenagers show poor judgment(the

ability to form valuable opinions and make good decisions

Teenagers are more willing to take risks

Teenagers experience more lack of sleep

Teenagers often misunderstand the feelings of others

adults understand the emotions of others

Adults use good judment

Adults do not communicate their emotions to someone

Adults are more likely to be logical

The reasons of the differences between teenagers and adults:

very sudden changes in hormone levels

a teenage brain is different from an adult brain

How different is a teenager brain?

Neuron:a brain cell which carries messages between your brain and other parts of the body

There is an increase in the growth of neurons in early adolescence

Development in the lobes of the brain that control language,vision(ability to see) and spatial processing(relating to the
position ,area and size of things)

is already complete by this age.

In contrast,the development in the parts of the brain that controls planning,judgment and emotional responses is not completed yet.

The MRI images of the brains of adults and teenagers show that:

While making decisions

teenagers use a part of the brain related to emotions

adults use a part of the brain that is related to judgment and planning

Teenagers often take part in risky behaviors because:

They do not use good judgment due to their incomplete brain development During adolescence,there is a significant increase in hormones that affect behavior

Another factor that makes it hard for teenagers to use good judgment is lack of sleep Since their brains are developing rapidly,teenagers need more sleep than adults

Scientists are almost certain that lack of sleep affects memory,judgment and learning in a negative way.

Collocations about this unit:

* to use good/poor judgment, *make decisions, *take something into account, *lack of sleep, *raise questions,

*bring about changes, *commit crime, *take into account, *biological clock, * predict consequences, *make sense