READING 6 What are some examples of actions involving gross motor skills? Walking, throwing, climbing and jumping. What are some examples of actions involving fine motor skills? Tying shoelaces, hand washing, buttoning and zipping clothing, using eating utensils, cutting with scissors and turning doorknobs. True of False. Drawing during early childhood is a vital precursor to writing. True. What is theory of mind? The capacity to reflect on one’s own thoughts and to distinguish them from other people’s thoughts or ideas. What is egocentrism?” Refers to the tendency of a person to confuse his or her own point of view with that of another person. What constitutes normal physical growth during early childhood and how do individual variations affect development in different domains? Between two and five years, growth slows compared to during infancy, and children take on more mature bodily proportions. During the preschool period, large individual differences can be seen that potentially affect motor, cognitive and social development. Gender and cultural differences that are based on genetic, social, and nutritional differences are also apparent. What are the nutritional requirements needed for normal development during earl childhood? Children need adequate balanced diets for sustained development in early childhood, but many of the world’s children suffer from malnutrition. Children’s appetites often decrease during the preschool years compared to during infancy, and children become more selective about what they eat. What are the major threats to children’s health in the preschool years and how does poverty affect children’s health? Preschool children have an increased vulnerability to acute infection. However, infections tend to be minor due to large-scale immunisation programs controlling life-threatening diseases, at lease in Western countries. On average, Aboriginal pre-schoolers are often more at risk of ill health because the reduced economic resources of their families result in poorer nutrition and less access to medical services. When do children achieve bowel and bladder control and what influences the age at which it is achieved? Most pre-schoolers have already achieved bowel control and most achieve daytime bladder control early in the preschool period. Night time bladder control tends to come later in the period. Bladder control depends on several factors; including developmental readiness and the amount of time and effort parents are prepared to put into toilet training. What motor skills do children acquire during the preschool years and what causes variations in these skills? Children refine fundamental gross motor skills such as walking and acquire new skills such as jumping, throwing and catching during the preschool years. Fine motor skills such as drawing also emerge during this period, progressing from non-representational to representational drawings. Slight gender and cultural differences existin motor skills, but larger individual differences in motor skill development are a result of differential biological endowment and experience. Increased motor skills and greater independence mean preschool children are vulnerable to unintentional injury. Parents need to take pre-emptive measures in ensuring their safety. What are the special features and strengths of pre-schoolers’ thinking? According to Piaget, thinking in young children is preoperational, or characterised by limited skills in reasoning; although symbolic representation, principally in the form of language, is firmly established. Pre-operational thinking is also characterised by egocentrism (limited capacity to reflect on one’s own thoughts and to distinguish them from other people’s thoughts or ideas – essential in developing theory of mind) and by magical thinking and animism (a belief inanimate objects have qualities such as feelings). Piaget also assumed early childhood way typified by rudimentary skills in classification, and the absence of numerical concepts. Piaget believed preoperational children are unable to conserve; that is, to understand that the fundamental properties of materials and objects remain constant, despite superficial changes in their appearance. As well, Piaget’s view of young children included heteronomous morality – their inflexible one-sided view of right and wrong, dominated by authority figures. More recent research has revealed Piaget underestimated the capacities of pre-schoolers, possibly because of the open-ended questioning methods he used. NeoPiagetian theorists agree with Piaget’s belief in stage-based development, but take recent research on cognitive development into account and focus on changes in relatively specific cognitive skills in their work. How does the language of preschool children develop and how does it differ from that of older children? During the preschool years, children’s word production increases dramatically, alongside their understanding of word meanings. They also gradually master the phonology or sound system of their native language. Young children make major strides in acquiring the grammar of their native language. Pre-schoolers’ first word combinations are governed more by semantics or meaning and omit many of the grammatical conventions of adult speech. When grammar begins to emerge, along with longer utterances, it is marked by errors of over-regulation, in which youngsters incorrectly apply the rules to irregular grammatical forms. How do children acquire language? Leaning theory accounts of language acquisition rely on mechanisms such as reinforcement, shaping and modelling to explain how children acquire the syntax and semantics of their native language. The nativist theory responds to inadequacies in behaviourist theories, maintaining the production of grammatical sentences is largely innate and is governed by structures and mechanisms in the human brain. Neither of these approaches is adequate in explaining the genesis of language in young children. Later theorists have acknowledged social learning processes and pre-dispositions in language acquisition both play a role in language development during early childhood. How does hearing impairment influence pre-schoolers’ language development? Research has shown deaf infants and pre-schoolers who are immersed in a signing environment acquire expressive language at the same rate and in the same way hearing children do, although they use a system of gestures rather than spoken words. Many sign languages have developed in deaf communities all over the world and the decision to communicate by signing is partially determined by cultural and social factors. What constitutes effective early childhood education and how does it affect pre-schoolers’ cognitive development? Early childhood education and childcare programs take a variety of forms, with different educational and developmental philosophies behind them. Despite this variability, key aspects of programs are associated with positive cognitive and social development in young children. Three variables characterise successful programs: 1. Having staff oriented towards adapting the curriculum to individual children. 2. Taking an integrated view of the curriculum. 3. Significant involvement of parents in the program. Cultural diversity challenges early childhood educators to identify teaching practices that are not only developmentally appropriate, but also culturally appropriate. READING 7 Parten identified how many types of play? What were they? - - - 6 Unoccupied play: The child wanders about, watching whatever is of momentary interest, but does not become involved in any activity. Solitary play: The child plays alone with different toys or other objects and with no direct or indirect awareness of or involvement with other children, even if nearby. Onlooker play: The child watched others play without actually entering into the activities; is clearly involved with what is happening and usually is within speaking distance of the participants. Parallel play: Involves two or more children playing side by side in close proximity and with an awareness of each other’s presence often with the same toys or enjoying a similar activity; but do not share toys, talk or interact except in very minimal ways. Associative play: Children engage in a common activity and talk about it with each other, but do not assign tasks or roles to particular individuals and are not very clear about their goals. Cooperative play: Children consciously form into groups to make something, attain a goal, or dramatize a situation; one or two members organise and direct the activity, with children assuming different roles and responsibilities. What are the types of play based on Grusec & Lytton’s typology? Functional play: Simple, repetitive movements, sometimes with objects or own body. For example, shovelling sand, pushing a toy, jumping up and down. Constructive play: Manipulation of objects in order to construct something. For example, building with blocks. Pretend play: Substitutes make-believe, imaginary and dramatic situations for real ones. For example, playing ‘house’ or ‘superman’. Games with rules: Play is more formal and is governed by fixed rules. For example, hopscotch, hideand-seek. How do different styles of parenting influence pre-schoolers’ development? In early childhood, a child’s relationships with parents and other family members are a central source of psychosocial development. Parenting styles differ in their demands for maturity, control, and responsiveness to their children’s feelings and needs. Such variations are associated with differences in parent-child relationships and developmental outcomes. Parents with an authoritative style display high levels of control, demands for maturity, and responsiveness to their children’s feelings and needs. Their children tend to grow greater self-reliance, self-control and achievement. Parents with an authoritarian styles display high levels of control and maturity demands, but low levels of responsiveness to their children’s feelings and needs. Their children tend to be more distrustful and unhappy with themselves, and show lower school achievements than children of authoritative parents. Parents with a permissive style display high levels of responsiveness but very low levels of control and maturity demands. Their children tend to lack self-reliance and self-control, and may be at risk for more severe social and emotional problems. Parents often use mixtures of parenting styles and the preferred parenting style may change as children grow older and under different circumstances. How do sibling relationships contribute to pre-schoolers’ development? Young children’s siblings make an important contribution to their social development during the preschool years, providing them with companionship, support and role models, especially if they are older. Many young firstborn children experience the advent of a younger sibling, which can set the scene for later sibling rivalry. How parents handle this situation can contribute significantly to the development of positive sibling relationships. Contrary to popular belief, only children are not socially or emotionally disadvantaged by their singleton status, and may show superior psychosocial development compared to children from larger families. How do peer relationships affect young children? During the period of early childhood, children’s social worlds expand outside the family to include other unrelated children of similar developmental level. These relationships are important, allowing young children to practice social skills that are less readily available within the family circle, such as give-and-take and emotional regulation. From general peer relationships, children form their first friendships during early childhood. However, these relationships tend to lack the stability and some of the emotional characteristics of older children’s friendships, and depend largely on specific play activities. The quality of children’s friendships develops over early childhood, with loyalty and shared interests and the promise of future play activity becoming more important than momentary shared activities. Older preschool children also begin to focus more on the personal qualities of their friends rather than on shared activities as a basis of friendship. Why is play so important in pre-schoolers’ development, and how does play change as children approach school age? Play is the major activity of pre-schoolers. Psychoanalytic theory emphasises the mastery and wish fulfilment functions of play, while learning theory stresses the acquisition of social skills and gender roles through reinforcement and modelling. Ethological theory accentuates the evolutionary roots and adaptive developmental functions of physical play. Cognitive theory highlights the sequential development of play, which generally parallels the major stages of cognitive development. It includes functional play, constructive paly, pretend play and play involving games and rules. Different types and levels of play have been identified and these change as children develop. Parten identified six types of play based on social criteria: unoccupied, solitary, onlooker, parallel, associative, and cooperative play. These unfold in a roughly sequential manner. Grusec & Lytton developed another typology of play that parallels the stages of cognitive development. The setting is important to the development of play, and different types of play can depend on the environment as well as adult facilitation and the provision of play materials. What factors contribute to the development of young children’s prosocial and antisocial behaviour? Prosocial behaviour consists of behaviours directed at other people that result in positive outcomes and promote social relationships. Altruistic acts are acts where no rewards are sought. They depend on empathy – the ability to share and understand another person’s feelings. Very young children are capable of displaying empathy. When empathy is converted to sympathy, prosocial acts are more likely to occur, but these are rare during early childhood. Several factors can increase prosocial behaviour, including positive temperament, as well as parenting styles and environments that nurture and support such behaviour. Antisocial behaviour is the opposite of prosocial behaviour and is synonymous with aggression. Researchers have identified several types of aggression which may vary over the developmental period in frequency and between the sexes. As pre-schoolers grow older, verbal aggression replaces physical aggression and overall aggression declines. Wide individual differences exist in aggressive behaviour and factors such as child temperament, parenting styles and media violence can affect these behavioural tendencies. Young children who display very high levels of aggressive behaviour are at developmental risk, and may be diagnosed with conduct disorder later in childhood or adolescence. Early intervention for these children is important. Therapists may work with family members to correct dysfunctions that contribute to this behaviour, using techniques such as reinforcement, modelling and assertiveness training with parents, siblings and the target child. How do different theoretical frameworks account for the development of gender roles and gendertyped behaviour? During early childhood, children acquire gender-typed behaviours, gender identity and an understanding of gender roles specific to their culture and society. Several different theories provide contrasting explanations for the acquisition of both gender roles and gender-typed behaviour. Biological theories emphasise the role of hormones and evolution as precursors to gender-typed behaviour, while social learning theory views reinforcement and modelling of gender-appropriate behaviour as the primary precursors. In contrast, cognitive-developmental theories focus on children’s developmental advances in understanding gender as a precursor to these behaviours. However, no single theory justifies the origin of this important aspect of self during early childhood. More recently, there has been increasing interest in androgyny – the flexible adoption of both male and female gender-typed behaviours – and an emphasis on individual behavioural development. READING 8 What trends in height and weight affect school-aged children? Growth slows during middle childhood, but children still develop large individual differences in their relative height and weight by the end of this period. In the school years, weight can become a significant issue because of fears of social rejection and, in extreme cases, because of risk of health problems. For some children, especially girls, inappropriate dieting can also emerge during the latter years of middle childhood. What kinds of illnesses affect school-aged children? How does children’s cultural background affect their health? School-aged children in developed nations are less susceptible to infectious diseases compared to previous generations and to children in developing countries. A small percentage of children in developed nations suffer from significant chronic medical problems such as asthma. Most children contract acute illnesses such as influenza from time to time. Aboriginal-Australian children’s health is a serious issue in Australia, with Aboriginal children experiencing greater rates of infectious and serious chronic diseases than non-Aboriginal children. What improvements in motor skills do children usually experience during the school years, and how do they affect children’s involvement in sporting activity? Motor development during middle childhood can be seen in both fine and gross motor coordination, as well as in children’s increased strength compared to during early childhood. These developments, plus burgeoning cognitive skills, allow children to benefit from involvement in sport. Team and individual sports expose children to the risk of physical injury – but also provide opportunities, with benefits including greater physical fitness as well as achievement motivation, a sense of teamwork and an appreciation for competition. What new cognitive skills do children acquire during the school years? What are the psychological and practical effects of these new skills? School-aged children develop concrete operational thinking – reasoning focused on tangible objects and observable events. An important new skill is conservation – the understanding certain properties, such as mass and length, remain constant despite changes in appearance. Environment as well as maturation influence the age children attain conservations, as demonstrated by cultural differences in conservation and the results of training studies. Concrete operational children also acquire new skills in seriation, categorisation and spatial relations. Piaget’s ideas about cognitive development have influenced educators’ teaching strategies and the content of school curriculums. How does the social environment and interactions between adults and children influence cognitive development during the school years? Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky maintained children learn most effectively when they are presented with problems just beyond their present capabilities, and when they are shown methodically how to solve these problems by someone more competent or knowledgeable than themselves. These ideas have translated directly into popular contemporary teaching and learning strategies such as cooperative and reciprocal learning. How does memory change during middle childhood? How doe these changes affect thinking and learning? Both attention and memory improve during middle childhood. Children are able to concentrate for longer and are more flexible in their attention. Short-term memory increases in scope, approximating adult capacity by the end of middle childhood. Long-term memory also increases as a result of more efficient memory strategies and increased understanding of how memory works (metamemory). Increases in both attention and memory capacities allow children to learn and retain new knowledge more efficiently. What changes in language emerge during middle childhood? School-aged children’s spoken language sounds very similar to adult speech, with mastery of the phonology of their native language during this period. There are also dramatic advances in children’s understanding of syntax (the grammatical construction of their language) as well as in pragmatics (the when, how and where of using language as an effective means of communication). Metalinguistic awareness is a development unique to middle childhood, whereby children are able to reflect on their own language production. Bilingual children with equal proficiency in both languages develop certain cognitive advantages over monolingual children, such as greater cognitive flexibility and metalinguistic awareness. However, controversies remain about what the best approach to teaching English to minority children is, especially those who speak Indigenous languages. Bilingual education (in which both languages are given equal prominence and the culture of the minority language is respected) is the preferred method, although there are arguments for language immersion in some circumstances. What is intelligence and how can it be measured? Intelligence is a general ability to learn from or adapt to the environment. Traditionally, intelligence has been studies from the perspective of psychometric testing. Several different models of intelligence have evolved from the analysis of the test results of large numbers of individuals. More recent perspectives based on information processing theory have challenged the merits of the psychometric approach. Sternberg’s triachic theory divides intelligence into components, experiences, and the context of thinking. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences identifies distinct cognitive capacities: language skill, musical skill, logical skill, spatial skill, kinaesthetic skill, naturalistic skill, and interpersonal/intrapersonal skills. From a practical viewpoint, the psychometric approach to intelligence has yielded more usable ways of measuring intelligence that are applicable in the education of children. How does school affect children’s cognitive development? School provides experience in particular patterns of language interaction called participation structures. The teacher’s language is marked by large amounts of control talk, comments or other linguistic markers that remind students of the power difference between students and teachers. Classroom interactions may also be marked by a gender bias; with teachers and students favouring boys’ comments over girls’. School is also a primary arena of assessment and evaluation for children, as well as a setting that provides experience with individual, competitive and cooperative goals. READING 9 What major psychosocial challenges do children face during middle childhood? During the school years, children face challenges concerning the development of an identity or a sense of self, achievement, family relationships, peer relationships and school. What important changes occur in a child’s sense of self during middle childhood? During middle childhood, children develop a more complex and better integrated sense of self, acquire a belief in self-constancy and in relatively permanent psychological traits, and learn to distinguish their thoughts and feelings from those of other people. What is achievement motivation, and what forms does it take? According to psychodynamic theories, school children repress their earlier romantic attachments to the parents and focus instead on developing a sense of industry and achievement. During middle childhood, children shift their achievement orientation from an exclusive focus on learning, or a learning orientation, to a performance orientation that is influenced by other people’s responses to their achievements. How do changes in the nature of the family, such as divorce and increases in the proportion of single-parent and dual-income families, affect children’s psychosocial development? Many mothers now work outside the home, and their employment generally seems to have no negative effects on their children. Even so, maternal employment influences the division of household labour and children’s attitudes about gender roles. When parents are unemployed, families can experience significant stress. Providing good before and/or after-school supervision (BASC) is a challenge for working parents. For children in unsupportive environments, formal BASC programs offer considerable benefits. Schoolchildren often find emotional support from adults other than parents, as well as from siblings and friends. Divorce has become more common in Australian and New Zealand families and it often creates stress for all family members, although girls and boys react differently to divorce. Blended families, which result from parents re-partnering, pose considerable challenges, but younger children form attachments with stepparents more easily than older children and adolescents do. How do peers contribute to development during middle childhood? Piaget believed peers help children overcome their egocentrism by challenging them to deal with perspectives other than their own. According to Sullivan, peers help children to develop democratic ways of interacting and also offer the first opportunities to form close relationships with individuals outside the family. Peers serve an important function, permitting voluntary relationships of equality among children. Peer groups tend to segregate according to age, gender, race and ethnicity, and behaviour in peer groups varies according to these factors. Popular children possess well-developed social skills while rejected children exhibit behaviours such as aggression and withdrawal. Peers exert pressure to conform on individual children and this pressure can have either positive of negative effects. READING 10 What is meant by adolescence, and what changes in society have contributed to its establishment as a developmental stage? Adolescence, which begins around age 12 and lasts until about age 20, is a developmental transition between childhood and adulthood. The extension of education during the late nineteenth century and the abolition of child labour helped to create a period of transition between childhood and adulthood. What changes in height, weight and body shape occur during adolescence, and how do they differ for girls and boys? Adolescents experience significant increases in height/weight around the ages of 12-14 years, with boys a little later than girls. There are, however, large individual differences in the timing of the teenage growth spurt. The later initiation of the growth spurt in boys is responsible for enduring sex differences in adult height & weight. Body shape becomes differentiated in boys & girls by differential fat & muscle development, resulting in conformity to adult masculine & feminine body shapes. What is puberty and how does it affect boys’ and girls’ bodies? Puberty consists of the changes in the sex organs and related parts of the body that signal sexual maturity and the ability to reproduce. Pubertal changes are stimulated by increased production of sex hormones (androgens), particularly testosterone and oestrogen. In boys, there is a rapid growth of the penis and scrotum and production of fertile sperm; in girls, puberty is marked by menarche (the beginning of the menstrual cycle). Both sexes exhibit secondary sex characteristics during puberty; such as breast development in girls, beard development in boys and the growth of pubic hair in both sexes. What controls the timing of puberty, and what are the effects of non-normative pubertal development in girls and boys? There are wide individual differences in the timing of puberty, as well as cultural differences and historical variations. Puberty occurs within a fairly narrow developmental window, suggesting a strong biogenetic factor, but environmental influences, particularly the proportion of body fat, may vary the timing of puberty significantly within this biogenetically determined window. For boys, the effects of non-normative early maturation tend to be negative, with greater susceptibility to behavioural and psychological problems in the short term. Late maturation for boys may have shortterm, negative effects in peer relationships, but later maturing boys generally experience better longterm outcomes. Early maturation exposes girls to significant psychosocial and health risks, including inappropriate sexual relationships, STIs and teenage pregnancy, as well as externalising behaviours and adjustment difficulties, in the short term. Longer term outcomes, however, may be more positive. Late-maturing girls tend to be protected from early sexualisation and are generally better adjusted than early maturers. What major health threats do adolescents face, and how are adolescents more at risk than other age groups? Adolescents are a high-risk group for injury and death due to risky behaviours and beliefs of invulnerability. Major health threats in adolescence include exposure to STIs; substance abuse including recreational drug use, drinking and smoking; and obesity and eating disorders. Adolescents are more vulnerable to these health threats because they are related to risk-taking behaviours, which are more prevalent during the adolescent years. How does Piaget conceptualise cognitive development during adolescence? What has subsequently been discovered about Piaget’s ideas? According to Piaget, the period of adolescence is characterised by the development of formal operational thought, whereby individuals are able to reason abstractly in the absence of observable situations and objects. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning and propositional thought are two aspects of formal operations that allow individuals to think in terms of scientific method and sequences of logical relations. Research has revealed wide individual differences in the development of formal operations during the adolescent years; it is more dependent on sociocultural context than Piaget originally supposed. As well, formal operational though could well be confined to academic, settings and may not be highly applicable to ambiguous real-world problems. Formal operational though has a profound effect on adolescents’ behaviour, significantly expanding both their social and intellectual worlds, as well as engendering characteristics – such as idealism and political activism – that are predicated on logical analysis of society’s problems. How do information-processing theorists conceptualise cognitive development during adolescence? Information-processing theories recognise the significant improvements in many of the processes underlying the changes seen in thinking during adolescence. Short-term memory improves over that seen in childhood and long-term memory possesses a greater store of accumulated knowledge. Adolescents are able to use increased attention capacities and are better equipped to divide their attention between stimuli and to screen out irrelevant stimuli than children. How do thinking skills develop during adolescence and how can they be fostered through education? Formal operational thought allows the development of critical thinking skills involving open-minded, deep and reflective consideration of issues and concepts, with a subsequent commitment to certain beliefs. Critical thinking skills increase over the period of adolescence, but unless there is a solid foundation of fundamental intellectual skills in childhood, critical thinking is unlikely to develop. Teaching critical thinking is a common focus of many secondary schools that have developed reliable programs to foster and increase these skills. Secondary students, unlike primary school children, recognise the merits of critical thinking as a learning strategy over simple memorisation. Decision making is another crucial thinking skill in adolescence, which is a period characterised by problem solving of various kinds. Decision making utilises adolescents’ new abilities in perspective taking and entertaining different future possibilities, and competency generally increases with age. However, decision making may be compromised by the high emotional intensity common in adolescence. The relationship between the cognitive processes involved and the actual decisions made by teenagers, needs further investigation. How do different theorists conceptualise moral development? Piaget’s original work with children led him to propose development in moral reasoning from more egocentric, externally controlled conceptualisations to less external and more flexible ideas involving an understanding of other people’s intentionality in wrongdoing. Kohlberg extended Piaget’s ideas into a lifespan model of moral development consisting of six stages of moral reasoning that progress from more to less externally controlled moral behaviour. Subsequent research has confirmed the sequential nature of Kohlberg’s stages, but his final two stages are controversial, since they are achieved by few people, and alternative, non-Western cultures may not support the type of moral thinking that these stages access. Gilligan challenged Kohlberg’s model as being too gender-specific, and developed her of three-stage model based on the ethics of care – a feminine perspective. Subsequent research has revealed that both males and females use a Kohlberg ‘male’ justice perspective and a ‘female’ care perspective, depending on the degree of closeness they perceive in the relationships involved in moral dilemmas. This negates the existence of separate gendered systems of moral development. Regardless of the theory that is espoused, a fairly tentative link remains between the level of moral reasoning and ethical behaviour. READING 11 How do adolescents establish a personal identity? Which factors influence identity development? A key task of adolescence is successful resolution of Erikson’s psychosocial crisis of identity versus role confusion. Identity formation involves selectively integrating some aspects of earlier childhood identity and discarding others. Successful resolution of the identity crisis of adolescence depends on the opportunities to experiment with different social roles and activities. Individual differences in identity achievement are due to culture, gender roles, peer influences, parenting styles and life circumstances experienced by adolescents, which may increase or decrease opportunities for exploration. Marcia (1966) identified four identity status types: (1) identity achievement, (2) diffusion, (3) moratorium and (4) foreclosure. Adolescents tend to move from less developed to more developed status types, but in highly individual patterns. How does the sense of self develop during adolescence? How does adolescence affect self-esteem for boys and girls? Self- concept is based on more abstract beliefs and values than the concrete and comparative ideas of self during childhood. Increased perspective-taking ability may reveal ‘true’ and ‘false’ selves in relation to interactions with different people, but this can reflect positive experimentation with different roles that contribute to self-concept. Self-esteem decreases significantly between childhood and mid-adolescence, and more dramatically for girls than for boys. This sex difference is probably anchored to sex-role differences, greater body image dissatisfaction in girls than in boys, and the differential boost to self-worth that romantic relationships bring to adolescent boys and girls. How do parent-child relationships differ during adolescence compared to the period of childhood? What are common intergenerational conflicts and how do they affect parent-child relationships during adolescence? Parent-child relationships become less asymmetrical in terms of the balance of power during adolescence compared with childhood, as a result of adolescent’s push for autonomy. There are wide individual differences in the degree of autonomy achieved by adolescents, depending on parenting styles and cultural and gender based norms and attitudes. Conflict between adolescents and their parents may arise over autonomy issues and everyday responsibilities, but rarely over basic beliefs and values. Intergenerational conflict lessens towards the end of adolescence and, for most parents and their adolescent children, is not damaging to their basic relationship, which generally remains warm and positive. What are adolescent peer groups like? What is their relative influence over adolescents, compared to parental influence? How do adverse peer group experiences, such as bullying and gang membership, affect adolescent development? What characterises close friendships and romantic relationships during adolescence? During adolescence, close same-sex cliques of up to six peers gradually meld into mixed-sex cliques and larger, looser amalgamations of several cliques called crowds. Cliques and crowds provide the backdrop for new cross-sex interactions, including romantic relationships. Peer group conformity within cliques and crowds is not as strong as once thought, and adolescents seek out different kinds of advice and support from both parents and peers. Nonetheless, for a minority of adolescents, ineffective parenting and longstanding peer difficulties propel them towards peer group experiences in gangs. Gang membership introduces many of these adolescents to a criminal career, and may exacerbate the pre-existing interpersonal difficulties that predispose adolescent males to gang membership. As well, bullying within the peer group can seriously affect the psychosocial development and adjustment of victims and bullies alike. Positive peer relationships include adolescent same-sex friendships that are high in intimacy and mutual support and are an essential bridge to successful romantic relationships, which may also begin during adolescence. Romantic relationships are generally pursued through dating, with prescribed roles and behaviours for boys and girls. Early dating relationships tend to be more superficial and less intimate and enduring than those in late adolescence. What changes in sexual activities and feelings occur during adolescence? What is sexual orientation and how can it affect psychosocial adjustment in adolescence? What are the developmental risks associated with adolescent pregnancy and parenthood? During adolescence, most individuals experience their first sexual intercourse. The age when this occurs is becoming earlier, depending on gender, cultural constraints and peer influences. The double standard still exists in Western and non-Western societies, giving males greater licence for premarital sex than females. Sexual orientation is the gender context in which sexual attraction and activity occurs. Sexual orientation minority status – lesbian, gay or bisexual – may pose additional challenges to identity formation and sexual maturation during adolescence, with homophobia leading to adverse experiences that make ‘coming out’ a stressful experience for many youths. Teenage pregnancy and parenthood can pose significant developmental risks for both parents and children born to young parents. Unless adequate supports are in place, teenage mothers, in particular, run the risk of a lifelong trajectory of disadvantage. So, it is important teenage parents complete their education and receive family and community support.