Earlier, we discussed the statistics that place adolescents at risk for alcohol abuse. Researchers also have examined the factors that are related to drug use in adolescence, especially the roles of development, parents, peers, and schools.
Most adolescents become drug users at some point in their development, whether limited to alcohol, caffeine, and cigarettes, or extended to marijuana, cocaine, and hard drugs. A special concern involves adolescents using drugs as a way of coping with stress, which can interfere with the development of competent coping skills and responsible decision making. Researchers have found that drug use in childhood or early adolescence has more detrimental long-term effects on the development of responsible, competent behavior than when drug use occurs in late adolescence. When they use drugs to cope with stress, young adolescents often enter adult roles of marriage and work prematurely, without adequate socioemotional growth, and experience greater failure in adult roles.
How early are adolescents beginning drug use? National samples of eighth- and ninth-grade students were included in the Institute for Social Research survey of drug use for the first time in 1991. Early on in the increase in drug use in the United States (late 1960s, early 1970s), drug use was much higher among college students than among high school students, who in turn had much higher rates of drug use than middle or junior high school students. However, today the rates for college and high school students are similar, and the rates for young adolescents are not as different from those for older adolescents as might be anticipated.
Parents, peers, and social support play important roles in preventing adolescent drug abuse. A developmental model of adolescent drug abuse has been proposed by Judith Brook and her colleagues. They believe that the initial step in adolescent drug abuse is laid down in the childhood years, when children fail to receive nur-turance from their parents and grow up in conflict-ridden families. These children fail to internalize their parents' personality, attitudes, and behavior, and later carry this absence of parental ties into adolescence. Adolescent characteristics, such as lack of a conventional orientation and inability to control emotions, are then expressed in affiliations with peers who take drugs, which, in turn, leads to drug use. In recent studies, Brook and her colleagues have found support for their model.
Positive relationships with parents and others are important in reducing adolescents' drug use. In one study, social support (which consisted of good relationships with parents, siblings, adults, and peers) during adolescence substantially reduced drug abuse. In another study, adolescents were most likely to take drugs when both of their parents took drugs (such as tranquilizers, amphetamines, alcohol, or nicotine) and their peers took drugs.
Juvenile Delinquency
Arnie is 13 years old. His history includes a string of thefts and physical assaults. The first theft occurred when Arnie was 8; he stole a SONY walkman from an electronics store. The first physical assault took place a year later, when he shoved his 7-year-old brother up against the wall, bloodied his face, and then threatened to kill him with a butcher knife.
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Recently, the thefts and physical assaults have increased. In the last week, he stole a television set and struck his mother repeatedly and threatened to kill her. He also broke some neighborhood street lights and threatened some youths with a wrench and a hammer. Arnie's father left home when Arnie was 3 years old. Until the father left, his parents argued extensively and his father often beat up his mother. Arnie's mother indicates that when Arnie was younger, she was able to control his behavior; but in the last several years she has not been able to enforce any sanctions on his antisocial behavior. Because of Arnie's volatility and dangerous behavior, it was recommended that he be placed in a group home with other juvenile delinquents.
ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY
Angela is 15 years old and pregnant. She reflects, "I'm 3 months-pregnant. This could ruin my whole life. I've made all of these plans for the future and now they are down the drain. I don't: have anybody to talk to about my problem. I can't talk to my parents. There is no way they can understand." Pregnant adolescents were once practically invisible and unmentionable, bur yesterday's secret has become today's national dilemma.
They are of different ethnic groups and from different places, but their circumstances have a distressing sameness. Each year more than 1 million American teenagers become pregnant, 4 out of 5 of them unmarried. Like Angela, many become pregnant in their early or middle adolescent years, 30,000 of them under the age of 15. In all, this means that 1 of every 10 adolescent females in the United States becomes pregnant each year, with 8 of the 10 pregnancies being unintended. As one 17-year-old Los Angeles mother of a 1-year-old boy said, "We are children having children." The only bright spot in the adolescent pregnancy statistics is that the adolescent pregnancy rate, after increasing during the 1970s, has leveled off and may even be beginning to decline.
The adolescent pregnancy rate in the United States is the highest of any in the Western world. It is more than twice the rate in England, France, or Canada; almost three times the rate in Sweden; and seven times the rate in the Netherlands. Although American adolescents are no more sexually active than their counterparts in these other nations, they are many times more likely to become pregnant.
Adolescent pregnancy is a complex American problem, one that strikes many nerves. The subject of adolescent pregnancy touches on many explosive social issues: the battle over abortion rights, contraceptives and the delicate question of whether adolescents should have easy access to them, and the perennially touchy subject of sex education in the public schools.
Dramatic changes involving sexual attitudes and social morals have swept through American culture in the last three decades. Adolescents actually gave birth at a higher rate in 1957 than they do today, but that was a time of early marriage, when almost 25 percent of 18- and 19-year-olds were married. The overwhelming majority of births to adolescent mothers in the 1950s occurred within a marriage and mainly involved females 17 years of age and older. Two or three decades ago, if an unwed adolescent girl became pregnant, in most instances her parents swiftly married her off in a shotgun wedding. If marriage was impractical, the girl would discreetly disappear, the child would be put up for adoption, and the predicament would never be discussed again. Abortion was not an option for most adolescent females until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled it could not be outlawed.
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In today's world of adolescent pregnancies, a different scenario unfolds. If the girl does not choose to have an abortion (45 percent of pregnant adolescent girls do), she usually keeps the baby and raises it without the traditional involvement of marriage. With the stigma of illegitimacy largely absent, girls are less likely to give up their babies for adoption. Fewer than 5 percent do, compared with about 35 percent in the early 1960s. However, although the stigma of illegitimacy has waned, the lives of most pregnant teenagers are anything but rosy.
The consequences of our nation's high adolescent pregnancy rate are of great concern. Pregnancy in adolescence increases the health risks of both the child and the mother. Infants born to adolescent mothers are more likely to have low birthweights (a prominent cause of infant mortality), as well as neurological problems and childhood illnesses. Adolescent mothers often drop out of school, fail to gain employment, and become dependent on welfare. Although many adolescent mothers resume their education later in life, they generally do not catch up with women who postpone childbearing. In the National Longitudinal Survey of Work Experience of Youth, it was found that only half of the women 20 to 26 years old who first gave birth at age 17 had completed high school by their twenties. The percentage was even lower for those who gave birth at a younger age. By contrast, among females who waited until age 20 to have a baby, more than 90 percent had obtained a high school education. Among the younger adolescent mothers, almost half had obtained a general equivalency diploma (GED), which does not often open up good employment opportunities.
These educational deficits have negative consequences for the young women themselves and for their children. Adolescent parents are more likely than those who delay childbearing to have low-paying, low-status jobs or to be umemployed. The mean family income of White females who give birth before age 17 is approximately half that of families in which the mother delays birth until her mid- or late twenties.
Serious, extensive efforts need to be developed to help pregnant adolescents and young mothers enhance their educational and occupational opportunities. Adolescent mothers also need extensive help in obtaining competent day care and in planning for the future. Experts recommend that, to reduce the high rate of teen pregnancy, adolescents need improved sex-education and family-planning information, greater access to contraception, and broad community involvement and support. Another very important consideration, especially for young adolescents, is abstention, which is increasingly being included as a theme in sex-education classes.
In Holland and Sweden, as well as in other European countries, sex does not carry the mystery and conflict it does in American society. Holland does not have a mandated sex-education program, but adolescents can obtain contraceptive counseling at government-sponsored clinics for a small fee. The Dutch media also have played an important role in educating the public about sex through frequent broadcasts focused on birth control, abortion, and related matters. Most Dutch adolescents do not consider having sex without birth control.
Swedish adolescents are sexually active at an earlier age than American adolescents, and they are exposed to even more explicit sex on television. However, the Swedish National Board of Education has developed a curriculum that ensures that every child in the country, beginning at age 7, will experience a thorough grounding in reproductive biology and, by the ages of 10 or 12, will have been introduced to information about various forms of contraceptives. Teachers are expected to handle the subject of sex whenever it becomes relevant, regardless of the subject they are teaching. The idea is to dedramatize and demystify sex so that familiarity will make individuals less vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. American society is not nearly so open about sex education.
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Suicide
Suicide is a common problem in our society. Its rate has tripled in the past 30 years in the United States; each year, about 25,000 people take their own lives. Beginning at about the age of 15, the rate of suicide begins to rise rapidly. Suicide accounts for about 12 percent of the mortality in the adolescent and young adult age group. Males are about three times as likely to commit suicide as females; this may be because of their more active methods for attempting suicideshooting, for example. By contrast, females are more likely to use passive methods, such as sleeping pills, which are less likely to produce death. Although males commit suicide more frequently, females attempt it more frequently.
Estimates indicate that, for every successful suicide in the general population, 6 to 10 attempts are made. For adolescents, the figure is as high as 50 attempts for every life taken. As many as two in every three college students has thought about suicide on at least one occasion; their methods range from overdosing on drugs to crashing into the White House in an airplane.
Why do adolescents attempt suicide? There is no simple answer to this important question. It is helpful to think of suicide in terms of proximal and distal factors. Proximal, or immediate, factors can trigger a suicide attempt. Highly stressful circumstances, such as the loss of a boyfriend or girlfriend, poor grades at school, or an unwanted pregnancy, can trigger a suicide attempt. Drugs also have been involved more often in recent suicide attempts than in attempts in the past.
Distal, or earlier, experiences often are involved in suicide attempts as well. A long-standing history of family instability and unhappiness may be present. Just as alack of affection and emotional support, high control, and pressure for achievement by parents during childhood are related to adolescent depression, so are such combinations of family experiences likely to show up as distal factors in suicide attempts. Lack of supportive friendships also maybe present. In an investigation of suicide among gifted women, previous suicide attempts, anxiety, conspicuous instability in work and in relationships, depression, or alcoholism also were present in the women's lives. These factors are similar to those found to predict suicide among gifted men.
Just as genetic factors are associated with depression, so are they associated with suicide. The closer the genetic relationship a person has to someone who has committed suicide, the more likely that person is to commit suicide Eating Disorders
Fifteen-year-old Jane gradually eliminated foods from her diet to the point where she subsisted by eating only applesauce and eggnog. She spent hours observing her own body, wrapping her fingers around her waist to see if it was getting any thinner. She fantasized about becoming a beautiful fashion model who would wear designer bathing suits. Even when she reached 85 pounds, Jane still felt fat. She continued to lose weight, eventually emaciating herself. She was hospitalized and treated for anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder that involves the relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation. Eventually, anorexia nervosa can lead to death, as it did for popular singer Karen Carpenter.
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Anorexia nervosa afflicts primarily females during adolescence and early adulthood (only about 5 percent of anorexics are male). Most individuals with this disorder are White and from well-educated, middle- and upper-income families. Although anorexics avoid eating, they have an intense interest in food; they cook for others, they talk about food, and they insist on watching others eat. Anorexics have a distorted body image, perceiving that they will look better even if they become skeletal. As self-starvation continues and the fat content of the body drops to a bare minimum, menstruation usually stops and behavior often becomes hyperactive.
Numerous causes of anorexia nervosa have been proposed. They include societal, psychological, and physiological factors. The societal factor most often held responsible is the current fashion of thinness. Psychological factors include a motivation for attention, a desire for individuality, a denial of sexuality, and a way of coping with overcontrolling parents. Anorexics sometimes have families that place high demands for achievement on them. Unable to meet their parents' high standards, anorexics feel unable to control their own lives. By limiting their food intake, anorexics gain a sense of self-control. Physiological causes focus on the hypothalamus, which becomes abnormal in a number of ways when an individual becomes anorexic. At this time, however, we are not exactly certain what causes anorexia nervosa.
Bulimia is an eating disorder that involves a binge-and-purge sequence on a regular basis. Bulimics binge on large amounts of food and then purge by self-induced vomiting or the use of a laxative. The binges sometimes alternate with fasting; at other times, they alternate with normal eating behavior. Like anorexia nervosa, bulimia is primarily a female disorder, and it has become prevalent among college women. Some estimates suggest that one in two college women binge and purge at least some of the time. However, recent estimates suggest that true bulimicsthose who binge and purge on a regular basis make up less than 2 percent of the college female population. Whereas anorexics can control their eating, bulimics cannot. Depression is a common characteristic of bulimics. Many of the same causes proposed for anorexia nervosa are offered for bulimia.
So far we have discussed a number of specific problems and disorders in adolescence. As we will soon see, many adolescents do not experience a single problem, but rather their problems are often interrelated.
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| The Infinitive | Past Indefinite | Participle II |
| 1. be [bi:] | was [wÉz], were [w:] | been [bi:n] |
| 2. become [bi`kLm] | became [bi`keim] | become [bi`kLm] |
| 3. begin [bi`gin] | began [bi`gæn] | begun [bi`gLn] |
| 4. blow [blou] | blew [blu:] | blown [bloun] |
| 5. break [breik] | broke [brouk] | broken [broukn] |
| 6. bring [briŋ] | brought [brÉ:t] | brought [brÉ:t] |
| 7. build [bild] | built [bilt] | built [bilt] |
| 8. burn [b:n] | burnt [b:nt] | burnt [b:nt] |
| 9. buy [bai] | bought [bÉ:t] | bought [bÉ:t] |
| 10. can [kæn] | could [kud] | |
| 11. catch [kætò] | caught [kÉ:t] | caught [kÉ:t] |
| 12. come [kLm] | came [keim] | come [kLm] |
| 13. cost [kÉst] | cost | cost |
| 14. cut [kLt] | cut | cut |
| 15. deal [di:l] | dealt [delt] | dealt [delt] |
| 16. do [du:] | did [did] | done [dLn] |
| 17. draw [drÉ:] | drew [dru:] | drawn [drÉ:n] |
| 18. drink [driŋk] | drank [dræŋk] | drunk [drLŋk] |
| 19. drive [draiv] | drove [drouv] | driven [drivn] |
| 20. eat [i:t] | ate [et] | eaten [i:tn] |
| 21. fall [fÉ:l] | fell [fel] | fallen [fÉ:ln] |
| 22. feel [fi:l] | felt [felt] | felt |
| 23. find [faind] | found [faund] | found |
| 24. fly [flai] | flew [flu:] | flown [floun] |
| 25. forget [f`get] | forgot [f`gÉt] | forgotten [f`gÉtn] |
| 26. get [get] | got [gÉt] | got |
| 27. give [giv] | gave [geiv] | given [givn] |
| 28. go [gou] | went [went] | gone [gÉn] |
| 29. grow [grou] | grew [gru:] | grown [groun] |
| 30. hang [hæŋ] | hung [hLŋ] | hung |
| 31. have [hæv] | had [hæd] | had |
| 32. hear [hi] | heard [h:d] | heard |
| 33. hide [haid] | hid [hid] | hidden [hidn] |
| 34. hurt [h:t] | hurt [h:t] | hurt |
| 35. keep [ki:p] | kept [kept] | kept |
| 36. know [nou] | knew [nju:] | known [noun] |
| 37. learn [l:n] | learned [l:nd] learnt [l:nt] | learned learnt |
| 38. leave [li:v] | left [left] | left |
| 39. lend [lend] | lent [lent] | lent |
| 40. let [let] | let | let |
| 41. lose [lu:z] | lost [lÉst] | lost |
| 42. make [meik] | made [meid] | made [meid] |
| 43. mean [mi:n] | meant [ment] | meant |
| 44. meet [mi:t] | met [met] | met |
| 45. put [put] | put | put |
| 46. read [ri:d] | read [red] | read [red] |
| 47. ride [raid] | rode [roud] | ridden [ridn] |
| 48. rise [raiz] | rose [rouz] | risen [rizn] |
| 49. run [rLn] | ran [ræn] | run [rLn] |
| 50. say [sei] | said [sed] | said [sed] |
| 51. see [si:] | saw [sÉ:] | seen [si:n] |
| 52. sell [sel] | sold [sould] | sold |
| 53. send [send] | sent [sent] | sent |
| 54. set [set] | set | set |
| 55. show [òou] | showed [òoud] | shown [òoun] |
| 56. sit [sit] | sat [sæt] | sat |
| 57. sing [siŋ] | sang [sæŋ] | sung [sLŋ] |
| 58. speak [spi:k] | spoke [spouk] | spoken [spoukn] |
| 59. spend [spend] | spent [spent] | spent |
| 60. stand [stnd] | stood [stu:d] | stood |
| 61. sweep [swi:p] | swept [swept] | swept |
| 62. swim [swim] | swam [swæm] | swum [swLm] |
| 63. take [teik] | took [tuk] | taken [teikn] |
| 64. tear [te] | tore [tÉ:] | torn [tÉ:n] |
| 65. tell [tel] | told [tould] | told [tould] |
| 66. teach [ti:tò] | taught [tÉ:t] | taught |
| 67. think [qiŋk] | thought [qÉ:t] | thought |
| 68. throw [qrou] | threw [qru:] | thrown [qroun] |
| 69. understand [,Lnd`stænd] | understood [,Lnd`stu:d] | understood |
| 70. wear [we] | wore [wÉ:] | worn [wÉ:n] |
| 71. win [win] | won [wLn] | won |
| 72. write [rait] | wrote [rout] | written [ritn] |
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| .. | |
| I. | |
| Lesson 1. . . - . | |
| Lesson 2. there (there is, there are). some, any, no . many, much, (a) little, (a) few, a lot of. : . .. | |
| Lesson 3. . . . ................. | |
| Lesson 4. to be. to have. . . Text 1 Careers in Child Development...... | |
| Lesson 5. () Indefinite . The Present Indefinite Tense. -s (-es). Text 2 Careers in Child Develoment....... | |
| Lesson 6. The Past Indefinite Tense. The Future Indefinite Tense. Text 3 Careers in Child Develoment.. | |
| Lesson 7. Continuous. Text 4 Careers in Child Develoment.... | |
| Lesson 8. Perfect Tenses. The Present Perfect Tense. The Past Perfect Tense. The Future Perfect Tense. Text 5 Careers in Child Develoment.... | |
| Lesson 9. , ..... | |
| ... | |
| II .. | |
| 1 | |
| SECTION I. , . | |
| 1. "Early Childhood Education in Japan". | |
| 2. "Working Mothers, Day Care, and Child Development". | |
| SECTION II. , . | |
| 1. "What Every Special Education Teacher Should Know".. | |
| 1B. "What Every Special Education Teacher Should Know" (continued) .. | |
| 2. What Information May Teachers Disclose?. | |
| 3. Above and Below the Norm. Variations in intellectual ability | |
| 4. Children with Learning Disabilities. | |
| II. | |
| Lesson 1. . Degrees of Comparison. 腅.. | |
| Lesson 2. The Passive Voice. Indefinite Tenses. 充........ | |
| Lesson 3. . . ........................................................................... | |
| Lesson 4. Passive Voice................................................................................ | |
| ... | |
| III ............ | |
| SECTION I. , . | |
| 1. "Social Policy and Childrens Development"... | |
| SECTION II. , . | |
| "The Story of Raun Kaufman.. | |
| 2 | |
| III. | |
| Lesson 1. Modal Verbs. Can, could and be able to. May, Might and Be Allowed. Must. | |
| Lesson 2. to be to have ()...................... | |
| Lesson 3. The Infinitive. . ..... | |
| Lesson 4. . . , ................................................. | |
| Lesson 5. .......................................... | |
| Lesson 6. The Participles. | |
| ... | |
| IV ..... | |
| 1. "Social Policy in the Republic of Belarus" .. | |
| 2. "The Profession of a Psychologist" .. | |
| 3. What Students Think about Their Future Profession | |
| 3 | |
| ...................................................... | |
| , 셅... |
[1] a composition [,kÉmpə`zi∫n]
[2] as soon as
[3] to be over -
[4] to set a record
[5] the bakers -
[6] ironing [`aiəniη]
[7] a loaf [`louf]
[8] to clear the table
