Functional changes

Structural changes

Structural changes are the basis for the development of higher cognitive skills such as abstract thinking, which is highly involved in improving problem-solving and decision-making.

Abstract thinking

Grants the ability to:

• Define and discuss abstractions such as love, justice, freedom…

• Use terms like: however, anyway, therefore, probably… to

express logical relationships.

Language Development

• Refinement → adult reading material = vocabulary growth (crucial for reading comprehension)

• Becoming aware of words as symbols that can have multiple meanings.

• Enjoying the use of irony, wordplay, and metaphors.

• Greater skill in taking social perspective → ability to adjust one's way of speaking to the other person's level of knowledge and point of view.

• Essential ability to converse or persuade.

• “Pubilect” → Social dialect of puberty.

• Teen slang filled with exclusive terms as part of developing an independent identity separate from parents and the adult world.

• It helps strengthen group identity and exclude adults.

• It is characterised by rapid changes: new terms are constantly invented.

• Vocabulary varies based on gender, ethnic background, age, geographic region, neighbourhood, type of school, and from one group to another.

Changes in Working Memory

• A process that begins in middle childhood.

• An opportunity to handle complex problems or decisions involving multiple pieces of information.