Adolescent Cognition: Thinking in a New Key

The psychological changes from ages 6 or 7 to ages 12 or 13 are enormous, and include the beginning of formal reasoning. Offering a straightforward academic look at the developmental changes in adolescent reasoning and intellect, based on a model defined by Barbel Inhelder and Jean Piaget, this program uses plenty of field examples (the video is mostly shot on a middle-school campus) to show how teenagers learn to use abstractions, propositions, combinatorial logic, and ideal imagining. Especially interesting is the way each of these concepts are linked to certain adolescent traits that can be negative, such as risk-taking behavior or being overly argumentative. In addition, the construction of a personal identity is discussed. While the content is solid, the program suffers a bit from some odd editing and lackluster shooting decisions. Too, the price may be prohibitive for some institutions--especially for a rather dry video production. Still, this could be useful in psychology classrooms or with youth workers and is recommended for those situations. Aud: H, C, P. (E. Gieschen)