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Oklahoma State University

• Increase understanding of adolescent cognitive, development
• Introduce brain structures, circuitry, and functions
• Increase understanding of impact of child abuse on brain development
• Increase understanding of the critical differences between adult and adolescent thinking
• Increase understanding of adolescent high risk behaviors.
• Increase understanding of the effects of alcohol
• Discuss ways that preventionists and communities can support healthy adolescent development
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Oklahoma State University

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• Awkward period between sexual maturational and the attainment of adult roles and responsibilities
• Begins with the domain of physical/biological changes related to puberty, but it ends in the domain of social roles
• Encompasses the transition from the status of a child (one who requires monitoring) to that of an adult (responsible for behavior)
• From approximately age 10 - 20
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• Adolescence is much broader and longer than the teenage years alone ( has changed significantly over the past 150 years )
• Adolescence now stretches across more than a decade, with pubertal onset often beginning by age 9-12 and adult roles delayed until mid twenties.
• In 187 societies, the interval between puberty and achieving adult status was typically 2 years for girls and 4 years for boys
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• Most elements of cognitive development show a trajectory that follows age and experience rather than the timing of puberty
• Research demonstrates a significant positive correlation between pubertal maturation and socio-emotional system
(e.g., sensation seeking)
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PUBERTY
Romantic motivation
Sexual interest
Emotional intensity
Sleep cycle changes
Appetite
Risk for affective disorders
(girls)
Increase in risk taking, sensation seeking, and novelty seeking
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AGE/EXPERIENCE
Planning
Logic, reasoning
Inhibitory control
Problem solving
Understanding consequences
Affect regulation
Goal setting and pursuit
Judgment and abstract thinking

• Overall morbidity and mortality rates increase
200-300% between middle childhood and late adolescence/early adulthood
• Onset of problems such as nicotine dependence, alcohol and drug use, poor health habits, etc. that will show up as mortality in adulthood
• Many adult onset problems such as depression can be traced to early episodes in adolescence
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
Piaget
• Concrete operations - begins to think logically, operations are associated with personal experience and are only carried out on concrete objects,
– From about age 6 to early adolescence
• Formal operations
– Thinking about possibilities,
– Thinking multi-dimensionally,
– Thinking about abstract concepts.
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
• Formal Operations Stage
– Early adolescence – has a “now you see it, now you don’t” quality.
– Becomes consolidated in mid to late adolescence
– All adolescents have potential to develop Formal
Operations thinking, not all do.
• There are differing degrees of development. Some never leave the
“emergent stage” seen in early adolescence.
• There large gaps between individuals’ logical reasoning abilities and their actual use of logical reasoning in everyday situations.
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Oklahoma State University

Test: Are you Smarter than 5 th
Grader?
Would you prefer to attempt to pull a lucky lottery ticket from an envelope where your chances are:
(a) 1 out of 10 chances of getting the ticket;
(b) 10 out of 100 chances of getting the ticket;
(c) 100 out of 1,000 chances of getting the ticket;
(d) Any of the above;
(e) None of the above.
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
• Environmental considerations
– Parental Attachment may affect development of formal operations
– Explicit instruction affects formal operations
– Relevance (familiar situation) of the task used to assess logical reasoning is an important factor that influences performance once competence exists.
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
• The Piagetian perspective has waned in recent years.
• Not stagelike – gradual like a ramp instead of stairs.
• Skills that are employed
– more often by older than younger children,
– by some adolescents more often than by others, and
– by individuals when they are in certain situations more often than when they are in other situations.
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
Information processing view of adolescent thinking
– Is a perspective on cognition that attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process (such as memory).
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
– Attention
• Selectively attend
• Divided attention
• Better able to stay focused on complicated tasks.
– Memory
– Speed
– Organization
– Metacognition
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Oklahoma State University

Theories of Cognitive Development
• Most basic information-processing skills increase throughout childhood and early adolescence and level off around age 15.
• At 15 adolescents are just as proficient as adults in these basic skills.
• Still lacking in,
– ability to plan ahead,
– judging the relative costs and benefits of a risky decision
– Coordination of cognition and emotion when feelings might interfere with logical reasoning.
– Brain maturation process may not allow the development of these abilities to be complete until mid-twenties.
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
• Adolescents are better able than children to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thought to what is real.
• Adolescents are better able than children to think about abstract things
• Adolescents think more often than children about the process of thinking itself.
• Adolescents’ thinking, compared to children, is more often multidimensional, rather than limited to a single issue.
• Adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than as absolute
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
• Deductive reasoning – a type of logical reasoning in which one draws logically necessary conclusions from a general set of promises, or givens.
– All hockey players wear mouth guards
– Kim is a hockey player
– Does Kim wear a mouth guard?
– Inferences are guaranteed to be true by virtue of their inherent logic.
– Seldom used before adolescence
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CHANGES IN COGNITION
• Deductive Reasoning depends on:
– Inhibiting Prepotent Response
• Prepotent response - having priority over other response tendencies especially by virtue of maturational primacy, recentness of emission or evocation, repetition with positive reinforcement, or greater motivational charge
• Adolescents’ develop an ability to catch themselves before they incorrectly answer a question or draw a conclusion.
• Controlled by a region of the brain that develops during adolescence .
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CHANGES IN COGNITION
• Inductive Reasoning – Reasoning that involves drawing an inference from the evidence that one has.
– Kim, John, Julie, Tom, Liz, and Kendra are hockey players.
– Kim, John, Julie, Tom, Liz, and Kendra all wear mouth guards.
– Do all hockey players wear mouth guards?
– Used by people of all ages.
– Has differing degrees of certainty.
– Used in everyday situations.
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Oklahoma State University

Test: Are you Smarter than 5 th
Grader?
– All hockey players wear mouth guards
– Kim wears a mouth guards.
– Is Kim a hockey player?
• Yes
• No
Did you use
• Deductive reasoning
• Inductive reasoning
• Neither
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
Hypothetical thinking – emergence of “if then” thinking.
• Used to go beyond what is directly observable to abstract concepts.
– Used to plan ahead,
– See future consequences,
– Provide alternative explanations of events.
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
Metacognition – thinking about thinking.
• Monitoring your own cognition.
– Assessing your comprehension before continuing reading.
– Using a strategy to remember something
• Every Good Boy Does Fine = Lines of a treble clef
• Knowing why they know allows them to think differently and solve problems more effectively.
• Increases in
– introspection (thinking about own emotions),
– self consciousness (thinking about how others think about us),
– and intellectualization (thinking about our own thoughts).
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CHANGES IN COGNITION
New cognitive abilities that the adolescent is not yet accustom may lead to:
• Adolescent Egocentrism – Extreme self-absorption that results in two problems:
1. Imaginary audience – such a heightened sense of selfconsciousness that he/she thinks that their behavior is the focus of everyone’s attention.
a.
More intense in girls b.
Peaks about age 15 c.
Related to development of brain function – part that processes social information.
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
2. Personal Fable – revolves around egocentric belief that her or his experiences are unique. For example: a.
Mother cannot understand what it feels like to end a romantic relationship.
b.
Sexually active teen who simply believes that she (or girlfriend) won’t get pregnant.
c.
Reckless driver who believes that he/she can defy the laws of nature
3. Some of this extends into adulthood. For example:
– Ask an adult smoker if he or she is aware of the scientific evidence against smoking.
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
Thinking in multiple dimensions
• Children tend to think of one aspect at a time adolescents see things through more complicated lenses.
– Sarcasm – multiple meanings
• That was the most interesting lecture I’ve ever heard!
• I can’t wait to hear more!
– Ability to understand multiple dimension begins around 9 to 13 and continues to increase throughout adolescence.
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Oklahoma State University

CHANGES IN COGNITION
• Adolescent Relativism
• Children tend to see things in absolute terms.
• Adolescents are more likely to question “facts” as absolute truths.
• This can create many concerns for parents.
• But what’s going on inside the youth that may contribute to these changes?
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Oklahoma State University

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• New discoveries—research is still in its infancy
• Do NOT over-interpret or interpret too simplistically
• Most research has been conducted on animals —we assume the information transfers to people
• Behavior is the result of complex interactions among individual, environment, genetics, situation, cultural expectations, and numerous other factors
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Oklahoma State University

• Brain weighs approximately 3 pounds
• Brain has approximately
100 billion neurons and 1 trillion supporting cells
• Neurons grow and organize themselves into efficient systems that operate a lifetime
• Brain controls ALL activities
• Emotion and cognition are intertwined
• Neurons can re-route circuits
• Brain and environment involved in delicate duet
• Brain never stops adapting and changing
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Oklahoma State University

• Brain is an organ of behavior—both overt behavior and consciousness are manifestations of the work of the brain
• Different regions of the brain regulate different functions.
Our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are the result of how the different parts of the brain work together to process information and memories
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Oklahoma State University

Dorsolateral
Ventromedial
Ventromedial
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• Seat of personality, judgment, reasoning, problem solving, and rational decision making
• Provides for logic and understanding of consequences
• Governs impulsivity, aggression, ability to organize thoughts, and plan for the future
• Controls capacity for abstraction, attention, cognitive flexibility, and goal persistence
• Undergoes significant changes during adolescence — not fully developed until mid 20’s
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Oklahoma State University

• As the “prefrontal cortex” area of the frontal lobe matures, through experience and practice, teens can reason better, develop more impulse control, and make better judgments
• Prefrontal cortex is one of the last areas of the brain to fully develop
• Increased need for structure, mentoring, guidance
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• Responsible for hearing, understanding speech, and forming an integrated sense of self
• Responsible for sorting new information and for short term memory
• Contains the limbic-reward system (amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus acumbens, and vta)
• Matures around ages 18-19
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• Limbic system regulates emotions and motivations— particularly those related to survival —such as fear, anger, and pleasure (sex and eating)
• Feelings of pleasure/reward are very powerful and selfsustaining. Pleasurable behaviors activate a circuit of specialized nerve cells in the limbic area that is devoted to producing and regulating pleasure called the reward system
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For Example:
• Drugs of abuse activate the reward system in the limbic area of the brain —producing powerful feelings of pleasure
• Fool brain into thinking that they are necessary for survival
• Desire to repeat drug using behavior is strong
• Drugs of abuse can/do exert powerful control over behavior because they act directly on the more primitive, survival limbic structures — over-ride the frontal cortex in controlling our behavior
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Oklahoma State University

Structure
• We will primarily be talking about two areas of the developing brain:
1. Cognitive Control System – located in the prefronal cortex (PFC).
2. The socio-emotional system – encompassing the limbic system.
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• NEURON —specialized cell designed to transmit information to other nerve cells and muscles
• Each neuron consists of a cell body, axon, and dendrite
• Axon– an electricity conducting fiber that carries information away from the cell body
• Dendrite– receives messages from other neurons
• Synapse– contact point where one neuron
“communicates” with another neuron
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• All messages are passed to connected neurons through the form of chemicals called neurotransmitters
• Neurotransmitters are released from the end of the axon, cross the synapse, and bind to the specific receptors on the dendrites of the targeted neuron
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Neurotransmitters Involved In Risktaking
• Dopamine – among other things, produces pleasure and desire through the “reward system” and is involved with social information processing.
OCES
– Significant changes in the amount and location of receptors at puberty
• Shape social-emotional development
• Increases sensation seeking at this period
• Decrease of inhibitory control of dopamine release in prefrontal cortex
– Regions activated during exposure to social stimuli overlap with regions sensitive to reward system.
– SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE by PEERS seems to be processed in ways similar to other sorts of non-social rewards (e.g., addictive drugs).
– This helps to explain why risk taking happens in the context of
PEERS
Oklahoma State University

Neurotransmitters Involved In Risktaking
• Increased temporal gap between puberty
(change in dopaminergic system) and full maturation of the cognitive control system
– Places “early maturers” at increased risk.
– Early maturing youth report higher rates of alcohol and drug use, delinquency, and problem behavior.
– Age of experimentation with AOD, and sexual debut has declined over time, consistent with historical decline in age of pubertal onset.
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Oklahoma State University

Neurotransmitters Involved In Risktaking
• Oxytocin – neurotransmitter that is also a gonadal hormone
– Significant changes at puberty
– Influence on social memory, social information processing, and social bonding
– Explains adolescence heightened awareness of other “imaginary audience.”
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Oklahoma State University

• Early adolescents are not very skilled at distinguishing the subtlety of facial expression (excitement, anger, fear, sadness, etc.) —results in a lot of miscues—leads to lack of communication and inappropriate behavior
• Heightened social anxiety – “Do you really think she likes me?”
• Differences in processing, organization, and responding to information/events leads to misperceptions and misunderstanding verbal and non-verbal cues
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Oklahoma State University

Influence of Peers
• Adolescent risk-taking is far more likely to happen in groups.
– Peer drug use is one of, if not the, strongest predictor of individual drug use.
– Presence of same-age peers in car substantially increases risk of accidents
– Sexual activity increases when youth believes peers are sexually active
– Adolescents far more likely to commit crimes in groups
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Oklahoma State University

Influence of Peers
• FMRI shows presence of peers activates areas of brain (socio-emotional network) that are not activated when youth is alone.
• Same area that is activated by exposure to reward system.
• Peers make potentially rewarding-and potentially risky-activities even more rewarding.
• Peeks around 15 and then begins to decline
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Oklahoma State University

• Brain development occurs in 2 basic stages– growth spurts/overproduction of neurons and pruning
• Critical phases: in utero
0-3 years
10-13 years overproduction
• Overproduction results in significant increase in the number of neurons and synapses
• Exuberant growth during these 3 phases gives the brain enormous potential
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• These 3 critical phases are quickly followed by a process in which the brain prunes and organizes its neural pathways
• LEARNING is a process of creating and strengthening frequently used synapses (brain discards unused synapses)
• Brain keeps only the most efficient and “strong” synapses
• Children/teens/parents/ need to understand that they decide which synapses flourish and which are pruned away
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Oklahoma State University

• “USE IT OR LOSE IT”– Reading, sports, music, video games, x-box, hanging out —whatever a child/teen is doing —these are the neural synapses that will be retained
• How children/teens spend their time is CRUCIAL to brain development since their activities guide the structure of the brain
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• Adolescence is a TRANSITIONAL period during which a child is becoming, but is not yet, an adult
• Adolescent brains are far less developed than we previously believed
• Normal adolescent development includes conflict, facing insecurities, creating an identity, mood swings, selfabsorption, etc.
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• Underdevelopment of the frontal lobe/prefrontal cortex and the limbic system make adolescents more prone to
“behave emotionally or impulsively”
• Adolescents tend to use an alternative part of the brain– the socio-emotional system rather than the cognitivecontrol system to process information
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Oklahoma State University

• Thoughts and emotions are intertwined – teens need to develop a balance between cognitive and affective systems of the brain
• “COLD” cognition refers to thinking under conditions of low emotions and/or arousal
• “HOT” cognition refers to thinking under conditions of strong feelings or arousal
• Decisions made under conditions of strong affect are difficult to influence by cool rational thought alone
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• Decision making in teens cannot be fully understood without considering the role of emotions and the interaction between thinking and feeling
• Teen decisions are unlikely to emerge from a logical evaluation of the risk/benefits of a situation –
• Rather decisions are the result of a complex set of competing feelings:
– desire to look cool,
– fear of being rejected,
– anxiety about being caught,
– excitement of risk, etc.
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PFC amygdala




more “hot” talking, less “cool” talking
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I like to use drugs!!

PFC
I hate school;
I am going to skip classes and get drunk!
amygdala
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GOOD NEWS!
The pruning of the PFC neurons produces a more efficient PFC by young adulthood
I am planning for the future amygdala
PFC
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Adolescent Brain
Adult Brain
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 First use to “FEEL GOOD” accepted by peers
 Some begin to compulsively use because of the reinforcing effects
(e.g., to “FEEL NORMAL”)
 Changes occur in the
“reward system” that promote dependence
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 Immediate effect of drug use is an increase in dopamine
 Continued use of drugs reduces the brain’s dopamine production.
 Because dopamine is part of the reward system, the brain is “fooled” that the drug has survival value for the organism.
 The reward system responds with “drug seeking behaviors”
 Craving occurs, then tolerance, and, eventually, dependence.
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Oklahoma State University


Hippocampus (50%) brain activity during memory tasks trigger for relapse brain activation when shown alcohol images
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ALCOHOL’S EFFECTS
Alcohol affects:
• the sleep cycle, resulting in impaired learning and memory as well as disrupted release of hormones necessary for growth and maturation.
• coordination, emotional control, thinking, decisionmaking, hand-eye movement, speech, and memory.
• Adolescent drinkers perform worse in school, are more likely to fall behind and have an increased risk of social problems, depression, suicidal thoughts and violence.
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Oklahoma State University

• Binge drinking is extremely dangerous for adolescents given that their brain is especially vulnerable to alcoholrelated damage.
• People who begin drinking in their early teens are not only at greater risk for developing alcoholism sometime in their lives, they are also at greater risk for developing alcoholism more quickly and at younger ages, especially chronic, relapsing alcoholism.
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 Significant shrinking of the brain
 50% - 75% show cognitive impairment
 Effects remain even after detoxification & abstinence
 Alcohol dementia is 2 ndleading cause of adult dementia
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• Growing evidence of altered brain development and functioning as the result of abuse and neglect
• Our interactions with the world “organize our brain’s development” and shapes the person we become
(Shore, 1997)
• Brain will develop to respond to a positive or a negative environment
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• Chronic stress, abuse, and neglect sensitize certain neural pathways and over-develop certain regions of the brain (limbic region) involved in anxiety and fear. This often results in the under-development of other regions of the brain (frontal lobe)
• Chronic stress from fear, violence, abuse, hunger, pain, etc. focuses the brain’s resources on survival and other areas of the brain are not “available” for learning social and cognitive skills
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• Chronic activation of certain parts of the brain involved in the fear response — hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-(HPA) axis can “wear out” other parts of the brain such as the hippocampus (memory, cognition, communication)
• HPA axis significantly influences cognitive development as well as behavioral and emotional regulation
• Abuse like addiction impact learning, behavior, and psychological and moral development on a cellular level
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• Neural systems that are chronically activated by threat can change in permanent ways:
– Altering number of synapses & which are pruned
– Changing dendritic density & neurotransmitter receptors
– Inhibit development of neurons
– Change gross structure and volume of the hippocampus
– delays in myelination
– Inhibition of neurogenesis
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• Diminished growth in the left hemisphere — may increase risk for depression
• Irritability in the limbic system can set the stage for the emergence of panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder
• Smaller growth in the hippocampus can increase the risk for dissociative disorders and memory impairment
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Risk Taking
• Greatest threats to the well-being of young people in industrialized societies comes from preventable and often self-inflicted causes.
• e.g. Automobile and other accidents account for nearly ½ of all fatalities among adolescent youth.
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Oklahoma State University

Risk Taking
• Adolescents and young adults under 25 are more likely than adults to:
– Binge drink,
– Smoke cigarettes,
– Have casual sex partners,
– Engage in violent and other criminal behavior,
– Have fatal or serious car accidents (majority due to risky driving or driving under the influence of alcohol).
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Handout on Risk Behaviors

Risk Taking
Adolescent risk behavior effects society as a whole
• Behavior initiated in adolescence elevates risk in adulthood (e.g., smoking >>Cancer).
• Risk-taking places others at risk (e.g., reckless driving, criminal behavior).
• Reducing risk-taking by young would make a substantial improvement in overall well-being of the population.
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Risk Taking
Primary approach to reduce risk-taking has been school-based educational programs
– Degree of effectiveness is doubtful
– Virtually all have received some intervention to reduce: smoking, drinking, drug use, unprotected sex, & driver training.
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Risk Taking
• Still in year prior to taking YRBS (Youth
Risk Behavior Survey) approx.:
– 30% rode in car driven by someone who had been drinking;
– 25% reported multiple episodes of binge drinking;
– 25% were regular cigarette smokers; and
– 30% reported no condom use either the first or last time they had sexual intercourse.
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Risk Taking
• Program better more successful at changing knowledge than altering behavior.
• Approx. $1 billion spent yearly to educate youth of the dangers of drinking, smoking, drugs, unprotected sex and reckless driving.
• D.A.R.E. and Abstinence Training show no effectiveness reducing targeted behaviors
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Risk Taking
Three widely held beliefs about adolescents NOT supported by research are:
1. Adolescents are irrational or deficient in their information processing, or that they reason about risk I fundamentally different ways that adults;
2. Adolescents do not perceive risk where adults do, or are more likely to believe that they are invulnerable ;
3. Adolescents are less risk-averse than adults.
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Risk Taking
• The logical reasoning and basic informationprocessing abilities of 16-year-olds are comparable to those of adults;
• Adolescents are no worse at perceiving risks than adults or estimating their vulnerability to it
(in fact they tend to overestimate danger associated with risky behaviors)
• Adolescents increases in risky behavior is NOT due to ignorance, irrationality, delusions of invulnerability, or faulty calculation.
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Risk Taking
• Providing information and problem solving skills may be an incomplete approach if not misguided if goal is behavior change.
• Research suggests that the reasons are more:
– Social and emotional, not cognitive.
• Solution may lie in changing the context in which risky activity takes place rather that changing what they know or how they think.
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What Was I Thinking???
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Risk Taking
• Risk taking increases between childhood and adolescence as a result of changes around time of puberty due to changes in the socio-emotional system in the brain that lead to increased reward and sensation seeking, especially in presence of peers.
• Risk taking declines between adolescence and adulthood due to increases in cognitive-control system in the brain.
– Improves capacity for self-regulation
– Increase gradually and NOT complete until mid-20s.
• Together the timing of these two changes heighten vulnerability to risky and reckless behavior.
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Risk Taking

Risk Taking
Risk taking declines between adolescence and adulthood for at least two reasons:
1. Maturation of cognitive control system due to structural and functional changes in the prefrontal cortex, strengthens the ability to engage in longer-term planning and inhibit impulsive behavior.
2. Maturation of connections across cortical areas and between cortical and subcortical regions facilitates the coordination of cognition and affect, which permits better modulation of socially and emotionally aroused inclinations with deliberative reasoning.
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Risk Taking
• Risk taking can be understood as a the product of an interaction between the socio-emotional and cognitive control networks.
• Adolescence is a period in which the former abruptly becomes more assertive at puberty, and
• The latter gains strength only gradually, over a longer period of time.
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Risk Taking
• The socio-emotional network is not constantly in a state of high activation.
– Not highly activated when youth isn’t emotionally excited or is alone.
– In these times the cognitive control network is strong enough to regulate impulsivity and risky behavior – even in early adolescence.
• In presence of peers or when sufficiently activated, diminishes the regulatory effectiveness of the cognitive control system.
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• To appreciate consequences of risky behavior, one has to have the ability to think through potential outcomes and understand the permanence of consequences, due to an immature prefrontal cortex, teens are not skilled at doing this and in certain situations may not be able to do this.
• Teens do not take information, organize it, and understand it in the same way that adults do —they have to learn how to do this
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• Important to understand that teens often fail to heed common sense or adult warnings because they simply may not be able to understand and/or accept reasons that seem logical and reasonable to adults
• NEVER assume that you and a teen are having the same understanding of a conversation
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• With experience, teens are able to temper their emotional reaction with more rational, reasoned responses —they are able to “apply the brakes” to emotional responses.
• During this time of development, teens need adult mentors and role-models who demonstrate how to make good decisions and how to control emotions
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• Adolescence involves the maturation of selfregulation of behavior and emotions —teens need to learn how to navigate complex social situations under conditions of strong emotions – such as
– social anxieties, romantic relationships, academic pressures, desires for immediate gratification vs. long term goals, moral dilemmas, and success/failure
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• Teens are not adults—Brain development is not complete
• Teens are operating from the emotional/impulsive/reward oriented part of the brain
• Communication is a complicated process
• Technology is transforming the world
• Disparities between knowing/feeling and understanding/behaving
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• We have individuals who, based on life experiences, have been in effect “hard wired for negative behaviors”; therefore, preventionists must ‘re-wire these brains for positive, successful behavior’ (Shore,
1997)
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• CORRECTIVE THINKING – correct false assumptions, reframe thinking —client is not bad, stupid, sick, or damaged
• STRUCTURE – provide a safe, predictable, consistent environment that helps to reduce anxiety
• DISCERNMENT – provide experiences in which clients practice “reading” facial expressions and
“social” situations
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• INFORMATION – help clients understand how their brains develop; how brain function impacts behavior; and process for re-wiring the brain
• HOT/COLD COGNITION – during stressful, emotional, or threatening situations “problem solving” information in the cortex is not easily accessed; clients need practice and concrete ways to access information and skills
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Prevention Strategies
• Limit opportunities for immature judgment to have harmful consequences.
• For example:
– Raise price of alcohol & cigarettes
– Increased enforcement of laws governing the sale of alcohol.
– Raising the driving age.
– Increasing authoritative parenting (monitoring)
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• Some of the most important changes in the brain occur between the ages of 10-20,
• Changes include remodeling of the frontal lobes – planning for the future, decision-making, controlling impulses, thinking about consequences
• Good news is that we can help shape healthy teen brains by creating healthy environments
• Bad news is poor decision making during teen years, like heavy drinking, could affect the rest of ones life
• No doubt that alcohol/drug are bad for developing brains
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Summary
• The alcohol industry must do more to ensure safe use of their products –voluntarily or by pressure from the public
• Pay for independent programming
• Give back some of the est $20 billion spent by kids each year
• Stop using misleading ad campaigns and state risks clearly in the ads!
• Pay for damage caused by their products like cigarette manufacturers
• Provide full funding for treatment centers –why should tax payers cover the cost of the ills caused by their products?
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Oklahoma State University

Summary
• Educate the public about new research on alcohol and the teen brains using honest statements of risks
• Increase cost of alcohol (one tax hike in 55 yrs!!)
• Use some of extra tax money to fund programs, including those that promote healthy development in addition to teaching of risks to teens
• Create opportunities for kids to grow intellectually and emotionally –kids that are busy are more likely to get through the teen years untouched by alcohol or other drug use
OCES
Oklahoma State University

• Talks to kids about alcohol, other drugs and other issues
– Let them know your opinions –they internalize them even if they don’t want to listen!
– Teach by example --teach kids to make healthy choices
– Education can and does make a difference
• Dealing with the underage drinking issue requires widespread cultural change –a daunting yet doable task
• Involving kids in community projects can turn vandals into artists
• Raising healthier teens now is an investment that would pay off for generations to come
• Refuse to accept the current state of underfunding
• We need to create more opportunities for kids not cut them!
OCES
Oklahoma State University