Chapter 3: Under Construction: The Young Adolescent Brain

Understanding and responding to the unique developmental characteristics of young adolescents—10-to 14-year-olds—has been a central and enduring focus of middle grades education. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Hall (1904) acknowledged that young adolescence was a distinctive developmental stage. The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1989) referred to young adolescence as a critical transition time—a “turning point”—in human development. Leaders in middle grades education (Alexander & George, 1981; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1975; Eichhorn, 1966; Lipsitz, 1984; Lounsbury & Vars, 1978; National Association of Secondary School Principals Council on Middle Level Education, 1985; National Middle School Association, 1982, 1995, 2003) and advocates (Jackson & Davis, 2000) offered recommendations and forwarded positions to support this specific age group. Scales (2003) described the considerable physical, intellectual, psychological, emotional, social, and moral developmental changes that young adolescents experience during this period. Not surprisingly, researchers (e.g., Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006; Giedd, 2004) have found that young adolescence is also a significant time for human brain development.