Scenario

You are a Drug Treatment Specialist for Wayne County, Michigan. You work specifically as the intake coordinator for the adolescent and adult drug and alcohol treatment programs. In order to develop and implement individualized treatment plans, you need to perform psychosocial assessments and other types of individual testing required by the courts. Before conducting these assessments, you need to thoroughly understand the normal/healthy developmental milestones that occur at 12-years-old until the end of life. Since you often have to explain these developmental milestones to the direct care staff you work with, you have decided to create a PowerPoint presentation.

 

Instructions

In your presentation, identify and explain the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development milestones for the following age ranges:

· Adolescence (ages 12-18)

· Early Adulthood (ages 18-40)

· Middle Adulthood (ages 40-60)

· Late Adulthood (ages 60+)

 

Additionally, for each age range, describe the impact of drugs and alcohol on development

Make sure your presentation is visually appealing with colors, graphics, and keywords. Use the notes section below each slide to write the details of what you would have said had you given the presentation live. This allows you to show your understanding and critical thinking skills to your instructor.

 

 

 

Discussion

Directions:

In discussions of human development, the focus is often on child development. While the lifespan perspective identifies that no one period of life has more influence on development than another, the stages of adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood all have the opportunity for dramatic changes to the individual.

 

 

Initial Post

Based on your knowledge, experiences, and observations of the growth and development during adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood, which stage brings the most change? Explain why you believe this stage of development involves the greatest amount of changes and include examples.

 

Reply Post

Reply to a student with a different opinion. Identify an example they used to support their opinion that you had not considered. Does their post change your mind? Why or why not?

 

 

Reply 1

Based on my knowledge, experiences, and observations of the growth and development in life stages, It is my beliefs that the adolescence stage brings the most change. The adolescence stage(12-18yrs. old), is a time when the body takes on many physical changes. For girls, the early years are met with with puberty which includes; developing breast, hair on body parts, and the start of the menstrual cycle which bridges a child into a adult because they are now able to conceive. For boys, the early years during this stage also has physical changes but most would agree the changes are mild compared to that of young girls. Boys will have a growth spurt, voice becomes deeper, body changes, first ejaculation will also occur in the early stages.

 

During this time, adolescence are also still trying to fit in with peers and development valuable, meaningful friendships. The ability to make life choices that will impact the early adulthood stage will also take place during the adolescence years.

 

Reply 2

All stages of life development has their own big changes that they are experiencing. An age range that I believe to have the biggest changes in their life is the early adulthood. I believe this to have the biggest change because as an young adult there are multiple factors of social emotional development that can affect a person’s development compared to the other categories in a person’s development. As an young adult a person is trying to build relationships with friends, coworkers, and significant others while also trying function as an adult. These relationships are important because it affects the way the young adult carries themselves. Without relationships like these it can cause for a person going through this stage to have more issues with social interactions and how to handle themselves as a person. There is minimal physical changes that are happening, compared to adolescence, to a person within in this age group. The changes that are made in this stage is their body going through puberty. Their mental development is also changing during this stage of their lives. Though their brain is becoming more developed they are also using the skills they learned from a child (critical thinking, gross motor functions, etc.) and increasing them more. These cognitive skills are increased by the activities that are being performed in their day to day lives. It is Important to improves these skills because of the increased difficulty the tasks become for a person of an older development. Because of the changes that a person going through the stage of young adulthood and the aspect of the person going through the change has to enhance the changes the skills learned from the previous age groups.

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