Handbook of Adolescent Medicine and Health Promotion

Abstract

Personal histories prove that the innocence of childhood does grow into the curiosity and risk-seeking of adolescence. Parents often feel like a failure when their children do not grow into the teenager or young adult that they wanted them to be! In the past, developmentalists, or those in the health professions who have been interested in such matters, have essentially focused on the biology of change.With the availability of new imaging technologies, there has been an increased interest in correlating biology with manifest psychological development and behavior. The core determinants of change are being defined— the very determinants that brought us to our present position.