1. Understanding the Adolescent Brain
Presented by
Garfield Gini-Newman
Associate Professor
OISE/University of Toronto 1

2. "The young people of today think of nothing but themselves
"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."
Socrates c. 400 B.C.E. 3

3. Wikipedia generation is lazy and unprepared for university’s rigours, survey of faculty says
Toronto Star, April 6, 2009
The evidence is strong that they [Net Geners] are the smartest generation ever.
[They have] been given the opportunity to fulfill their inherent human intellectual potential as no other generation.
Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital, 2009

4. Some recommended reading

5. One workshop gave lessons on how to study well.
Does a child's belief about intelligence have anything to do with academic success?
100 seventh graders, all doing poorly in math, randomly assigned to workshops
One workshop gave lessons on how to study well.
The other taught about the nature of intelligence and the brain.

6. Students in the latter group "learned that the brain actually forms new connections every time you learn something new, and that over time, this makes you smarter.”
By the end of the semester, the group who had been taught that the brain can grow smarter, had significantly better math grades than the other group.

7. Nurturing a Growth Mindset
Fixed Mindset
See intelligence as fixed - something you are born with
Success/failure is what is expected
School is about demonstrating your worth
Avoid challenges which may not immediately yield success
Growth Mindset
see setbacks as a challenge that motivate
success is about stretching oneself
intelligence comes from hard work
School is an opportunity to expand intelligence

8. Think of an Adolescent You Know
Reflecting on an
adolescent you know,
how many characteristics
of the typical teenage can
you list?

9. Marching to a Different Circadian Rhythm!
Teens begin to secrete melatonin, chemical neurotransmitter which makes us feel drowsy, 1 to 3 hours later and it lingers on later in the morning
Teens sleep needs far exceed adults – they need at least 9 hours
Teens are the most sleep-deprived segment of North American society

10. Implications of Sleep Deprivation for the Adolescent Learning
Do less well in school
Experience a greater feeling of sadness and hopelessness
Greater mood swings (less able to control emotions)
Less able to process emotions and are therefore prone to raw emotional outbursts
Causes an elevated level of the stress hormone, cortisol
Impairs ability to process glucose which contributes to obesity and type-2 diabetes – both on the rise among North American teens

11. Your Brain – “The Great Inhibitor”
Brain development is essentially “progressive inhibition”

12. As children grow their inhibition
machinery becomes more finely tuned
Because the teens’ prefrontal cortex is not fully developed they are prone to more impulsive behaviour

13. Social Relationships and the Cerebellum
Until recently, the cerebellum was assumed to control movement but have little other significance
It now appears to be much more important in a wide range of behaviours including recognizing social cues

14. Social Relationships and the Cerebellum
The cerebellum appears to:
Be the least heritable part of the brain (and therefore most shaped by the environment)
Change throughout adolescence
Be the last area of the brain to finish pruning and remodeling – even later than the frontal lobes

15. Social Relationships and the Cerebellum
What are the implications and/or insights suggested by this new understanding of the cerebellum?

16. Emotions in Early Adolescence
As the brain matures, it becomes more capable of impulse control and is better able at focused and sustained attention.

17. Daniel Weinberger, director of the Clinical Brain
“Everyone gets angry; everyone has felt a desire for vengeance. The capacity to control impulses that arise from these feelings is the function of the prefrontal cortex…it takes many years for the necessary biological processes to hone a prefrontal cortex into an effective efficient executive. The fifteen-year-old brain does not have the biological machinery to inhibit impulses in the service of long-range planning.
Daniel Weinberger, director of the Clinical Brain
Disorders Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health

18. Seeking Thrills
During adolescence increasing levels of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex appear to be offset by decreases in the nucleus accumbens and other reward circuits.
Implications – teens with dopamine depleted reward systems need a greater stimulation to get the same sense of satisfaction as a young child or an adult

19. Neurons that fire together, wire together!
Learning is a matter of making
connections. 19

20. The Process of Long Term Potentiation
When information (stimuli) is received, a trail
along a series of neurons is blazed making it
easier for subsequent messages to fire along the
same path. The more the path is re-fired the more
permanent the message or new learning becomes.
Each time an activity is repeated the bonds
between neurons strengthen and expand, leading
to an entire network developing which remembers
the skill or information.
Question: Considering the process of LTP what is the problem with covering curriculum too quickly? Need for elaborative rehearsal. 20

21. Considering how the brain learns...
...how and why is the behaviour
of an adolescent similar to that
of a 2 year old?

22. At both stages, the brain is responding to...
...a massive build up of connections and pruning away excess connections allowing for a more refined and efficient brain.

23. Brain Sculpting Imagine you have set out to capture
the essence of who you are in a
marble sculpture. Reflect back to
what life was like at age 11 or 12.
Walk yourself through the defining
experiences of your adolescence.
While doing so, imagine yourself
chipping away the excess marble to
allow for the emergence of your adult
self.

24. Shaping the mature brain
The brain sculpts itself through its
experience with the world.
Teenagers need to realize that the
brain is the only organ in the body
that is sculpted through
experience. What they are doing
with their brain now is going to
determine what their brain is going
to become as an adult. 24

25. Pruning of the Adolescent Brain25

26. Remember that...
“...if teens are doing music and sports and academics, that’s how brains will be hardwired. If they are doing video games and MTV and lying on the couch, that will be how they are hardwired.” Jay Giedd 26

27. Myelination 27

28. The Myelination Process
Understanding Myelination:
Myelin is a fatty, waxy substance that wraps itself around the axon
Myelin insulates the axon so that the electrical impulse travels more efficiently
The neurons you need to survive will myelinate first
Before a neuron is myelinated it is called immature
Myelination results in the creation of a more efficient brain 28

29. The Four Stages of Myelination
Development Stages
Birth to 2 years
2 to 7 Years
7 to 12 years
Adolescence
Myelin Release
Parts of the Cerebellum, Parietal and Occipital
Lobes (Primary Motor control area, Visual
Processing Area, and Primary Sensory Area)
Lobes dealing with speaking and
language comprehension
Temporal Lobe, Parietal Lobe and Cerebellum
(memory, integrating sensory data and movement)
Frontal Lobe (decision making, goal setting,
reasoning)

30. Important Observations for Understanding Adolescence
The frontal lobes are the last
to be myelinated occurring as
late as the early 20’s.
What adolescent behaviour is
explained by this
observation?
What are the parenting
implications of this 30

31. Teens need to solve problems and practice decision making.
Have teens apply learning to solve “real challenges”
Teach teens to use decision making models
Invite teens to consider implications and cause and consequence
Involve teens in making reasoned choices

32. How does the brain learn best?
Through experiential learning requiring children to move from the concrete to the abstract
Through problem solving and decision making
Through allowing children to “fail forward”
Scaffolding - do not ask an adolescent to multi-task until the learning has been internalized
Physical and other activities that improve coordination
These types of activities activate the area of
the brain responsible for critical thinking and
problem solving. The more we do with
adolescents which requires they solve
problems, the more we assist in strengthening
the area of the brain responsible for decision
making.

33. Teen’s Window of Opportunity: The pre-frontal cortex

34. Window of Sensitivity
The flip side of the window of opportunity is the window of sensitivity
While the “window” of development is open, harmful effects can have potentially greater impact
A young child how has several serious ear infections may impair their ability to distinguish sounds later in life, but those same ear infections in an adult will not have the same effect

35. Teens and the Window of Sensitivity
Window of sensitivity to alcohol is wide open for teens
potential damaging effects of alcohol far greater for teens than for adults

36. Four Basic Emotions Researchers generally agree
there are four basic emotions
and that all other emotions
are created from combinations
of these four.
Fear
Anger
Sadness
Joy

37. Emotions, the Amygdala and the Teenage Brain
Any information received by the brain travels first to the amygdala
The amygdala holds emotional memory - it tells you how you feel about things
In the teenage brain, the amygdala is developing faster than the frontal lobes
So, teenagers tend to be reactive not reflective 37

38. Reading Facial Expressions38

39. “Emotion drives attention and attention drives learning”
In her book Brain Matters, Pat Wolfe
noted:
“The brain is biologically
programmed to attend first to
information that has a strong
emotional content. It is also
programmed to remember this
information longer.”

40. What happens when the brain gets hijacked by negative emotions?
The body is readied for the fight
or flight response. The body is
primed with adrenaline preparing
it for the fastest physical reaction.
The hypothalamus activates the
amygdala, which in turn
produces anger, rage, or
threatening behaviour. 40

41. Ten Strategies for Guiding the Adolescent Brain
Take care of the brain with proper sleep, hydration, nutrition – and avoid caffeine after noon and beware the dangers of substance abuse.
Encourage extra curricular activities which develop social skills, physical fitness, problem solving, and encourage reading.
Be clear, explicit and avoid asking teens to multi-task.

42. Assist children in learning to chunk information.
Encourage problem solving, making connections, and involve children in identifying the problems in their actions and assist them in seeing the consequences.
Natural and logical consequences are preferable to punitive measures

43. Whenever possible, encourage children to build on their interests and talents – remember that intelligence is the ability to solve problems or create a product of value.
Recognize that emotions dominate and that teens are more likely to react than to reflect – assist them in making wise choices and avoid anger as a response.

44. Assist children in their learning by helping them move from the concrete to the abstract and remember that “being there” is the most powerful way to learn.
Above all, be patient – remember teenage brain is a
work in progress!