These are all life factors that could possibly affect an adolescence at any given time and how they affect their physical, emotionally, social and intellectual development. Genetic: Iron deficiency Anaemia
Anaemia is the reduction of either red blood cells because you don’t have enough iron in your body to produce the red blood cells. If you have fewer blood cells in your body then your organs and tissues won’t get an efficient amount of oxygen that they need. This can be common in girl adolescents because they lose blood during their menstrual cycle so can affect them more. There is more than one type of anaemia but this is the most common. Physical
This can cause you to have less energy throughout the day because it reduces the amount of oxygen the blood is able to carry which can cause exercises such as running, to make you run out of breathe quicker. Processes inside the body such as muscular activity and cell building and repair is slowed down resulting in it being less efficient. Intellectual
Due to anaemia affecting your energy levels you may suffer with dizziness and light-headedness which means you are unable to concentrate with your work and think clearly. If you’re constantly tired then that affects your concentration levels so you may not understand everything as quickly as you usually would. Emotional
Emotionally you may feel completely drained and constantly tired all the time which could cause mood swings or you could be unhappy all the time if you’re tired. Depending on the type of anaemia you have sometimes you have to eat iron and protein to prevent this so you may feel pressured or forced into eating certain foods because they have a higher protein and iron levels. Social
Anaemia can affect you socially because you won’t have the energy to go out and socialise with people so you may stay in the house and sleep rather than go out shopping or go to the cinema with your friends.
Biological: heart problems (hole in your heart)
Hole in your heart is a simple cognitive heart defect. It’s a problem with the heart structure and are usually present from birth or can develop as you grow older. It may affect the blood flow in the heart. There are two main types of holes in your heart, one is atrial septal defect which is when the hole is in the septum between the two upper chambers. The other one is called ventricular septal defect which is when the hole is in the septum between the two lower chambers of the heart. It can cause the deoxygenated blood to be mixed with the oxygenated blood so your body may not get an efficient amount of oxygen that it needs. Physical
This can affect you physically because you may become out of breathe quicker, resulting in you not being able to participate in sports to your best because you are physically unable to. Depending on where your hole is depends on how it affects you, it may affect your immune system so that may be lower than average so you won’t be able to fight off diseases and illnesses as easily. Intellectual
It doesn’t affect you intellectual.
Emotional it can affect you emotionally because you might think there is something wrong with you and people will laugh and judge you if you ever tell them, you may think that ‘why did this happen to me’ and ‘what did I do to deserve this’ this all depends on how badly it affects you. Social
If you get out of breathe easily you may not be able to go out as much as you like as you won’t have the energy to do so. This could lead you to staying inside and not socialising much with friends. Depends on how big the hole is it could impact you on what you could do, for example drinking and smoking so if your friends smoke and drink you may not want to be with them if you are unable to as you will think it’s unfair.
Environmental: Pollution
There are seven types of pollution; air pollution such as exhaust from vehicles, water pollution such as raw sewage running into lakes and rivers, land pollution such as litter found on the side of the road, noise pollution such as constructions noise, thermal pollution is the increase of temperature due to human activity, visual pollution such as sky scrapers blocking the view, light pollution such as unnecessary lights around the home. Physical
Pollution can impact on you physically because it may increase the chances of getting certain diseases like cancer especially air pollution. It may also lead to asthma which is a long term affect. Short term affects could be a sore throat and dyes, coughing headaches and pregnancy defects. Intellectual
Pollution can affect you intellectual, for example it can lead to people experiencing memory loss for a short period of times. According to studies that have been taken it shows that people have difficulties learning in an area with high pollution because it affects them intellectually so it may take them longer to figure out puzzles compared to someone who lives in a less polluted area. Emotional
Pollution surprisingly can affect people emotionally because it may lead to them feeling more anxious, paranoid and depressed within themselves due to it and if someone is pregnant and they live in a high polluted area it can lead to postnatal depression and may struggle with the effects of the pregnancy more so. Social
Pollution can affect people socially because if their friends live in an area that is highly polluted it may make them more likely to visit and see them so it can affect them socially. An example of air pollution is smoking so if your friends smoke and you don’t you may not want to experience that so will therefore restrict their friend groups.
Socio-economic: Social class
Social class is groups that individuals are classified into. There are 4 most common social class groups that most societies use, upper class, middle class, working class and lower class. Adolescents aren’t primarily impacted by social class but the social class their family are in can impact them. Physical
If you are of a lower class you may not be able to afford medication to fight off illnesses and diseases because they are too expensive for you to buy, but on the other hand if you are of a higher class that won’t be any trouble for you as you’ll have the money to buy the medication so your health will probably be at a better level than the people in the lower class. Intellectual
Depending on what class you’re in depends on what type of job you could get, a person in higher class could get a more complicated job which will use their intellectual skills, they may also be considered smarter if they had a better education so they will be more suitable for a bigger range of jobs When on the other hand people in lower class may not of have the best education compared to the higher class therefore they may not be as smart and be restricted to the jobs they can get, especially if their qualifications aren’t very high. Emotional
If you are associated with the lower class you may feel like you’re not good enough and that other people look down on you and judge you. It won’t feel a sense of worth being and you may even suggest why your even life depending how badly it get. On the other hand people associated with higher class could have a lot of confidence because you may feel like you have a lot of power over the people in the other classes below you and will feel a sense of pride. If you’re in the working class that could be very stressful as some jobs you’ll have to work long hours so you’ll be tired all the most and maybe finical concerns could add to the stress leading you to work longer hours to get more money. If your family are of a working class as an adolescent you may want to provide some finical help towards them if you see them struggling. There could be more pressure on you to earn a living to provide for your family and yourself. Social
It can affect your socially because you may not want to mix with the other classes, for example higher class may not want to mix with the lower class if they feel as if there standards are being brought down by them. Adolescents may feel conscious of who they speak to especially if they are of the higher class.
Lifestyle: Diet
Diet if the food that one person consumes, it should involve a balanced nutritious diet of carbohydrates such a bread which release energy slowly, fats that also realise energy. Protein that helps the growth of new tissues such as red meats. Water that prevents you from being dehydrates. Fibres that aids with your digestive system such as break, rice and oats. Vitamins that help maintain a good health. Physical
Having a healthy balanced diet will help you grow and develop, so without this you may not grow as much as you should and an unhealthy diet can lead to problems such as obesity which in turn can cause heart problems. A healthy balanced diet that involves protein, vitamins, fibre. Carbohydrates and fats release energy so if you don’t have these you will be very tired all the time due to you not having any energy which can lead you to not having enough energy to participate in exercise. Water will give you hydrated making sure your body works efficiently. Intellectual
Some foods are known as brain foods such as fish, mainly protein food so without these your thinking process and figuring puzzles out may be slower than usually without foods like that, on the other hand if you have a lot of protein and energy food your process of thinking and figuring puzzles out will be a lot quicker. Emotional
The effects of your diet on you physically can affect you emotionally, if you don’t like the look of your body for example if you think your overweight you will be more self-conscious. On the other hand if you’re anxious about putting on weight then you may not eat as much and that can lead you feeling self-conscious again if you believe you’ve put on weight. What you eat has a huge impact on your confidence as you may think other people will judge you about what to eat and what you look like due to you eating.
Social
The positive effects of dieting is that you will feel more confident in yourself if you have a healthy balanced diet because you will age less gradually and your body will be In better shape so you’ll want to socialise more The negative effects is if you in your environment all you have is take away and fast food shops you’re more likely to have them as they are closest to where you live therefore you are more likely to have a bad health due to the bad diet and may not want to socialise with people if you’re worried they’ll judge you.
Life events that influence the development of individuals
Life event are separated into two categories, predictable and unpredictable. Predictable is when you know that life event will event and unpredictable is when you don’t and it can happen unplanned at any time. Predictable event
An example of a predictable life event would be starting education such as college. That can have a big impact on them, emotionally they may feel very anxious about starting education if the environment the college is at they aren’t used to that could also make them very nervous. It can also be a very stressful experience that adolescence will want to choice the best starting point for their further education or next stop towards getting a job. This can put a lot of pressure as beginning college is a step closer to higher education or getting employment, this can have a huge impact on that teenager emotionally. Starting a new place can be a worrying situation, their confidence may be decreased because they may be nervous and constantly worrying about fitting in and meeting new friends and if they get along with anyone. A whole list of questions and scenarios will go through their head, mainly negative so it can impact on them emotionally in a negative way. On the other hand it can impact on them positively. They feel finally feel a bit of independence so they are able to have control of their own education, unlike what secondary school was like.
In college you are treated more like an adult so that can have the ability to boost your confidence because you will feel as if you’re being trusted. This can in turn boost the self-belief you have in yourself and feel like you have accomplish a lot more because others have trust in you too. Starting college can give that individual a feeling of self-identity and belonging. They will begin to realise who they want to become and what they want to do as they grow older so they will feel as if they now know who they are and who they want to become. Self-belonging will occur when they have found a social group they can interact and be socially with and be completely relaxed because they will feel as if they belong with that group because they have the same interests. That can also occur if they’ve chosen a course that they enjoy as they will feel as if they belong in that course and know they want to do this area of work in the future. This life event can also impact on the individual socially. It will give them the opportunity to meet new friend and socialise with new people.
They will meet people from different school and different areas. That can advance their socialising skills because they will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to many new individuals and learn how to interact with different people. There may be a range of religions and age and cultural and general backgrounds therefore they will have learnt to adapt their language and how to be social towards certain individuals depending on their attitude. For example some individuals from different cultures believe they shouldn’t be touched by others, so that individual will have to learn to meet their needs and not pass their individual boundaries by touching them for example. That is linked in with intellectual, they will learn new skills and techniques about socialising and interacting with diverse people. Their language skills will therefore develop. Another factor that will develop is their knowledge. They are being educated so they will begin to develop a border range of knowledge about that topic and will feel more confident within that topic as well.
Another predictable life event would be the birth of new sibling. After 9 month of the pregnancy you know eventually that this event will happen even if you may not have been aware in the first couple of weeks of conception. This can be very up and down event for an already child. It can come with a mix of emotions depends on how the child already takes it. It can be upsetting for a teenager because you may feel as if you have lost some affection as know all the attention is on your new baby sibling. This can cause negative emotions such as jealously due to the fact if you were an only child you’re suddenly not the one getting all the affection it’s being shared.
Emotionally and socially you need to adjust to be able to meet your new role, you may need to look after your sibling and get your parents with looking after her/him if they are busy. Your emotions are developed because you develop new emotions like, affection, concerns. You will be concern if you see your sibling cry as you will want to know how to help them. It’s also a new relationship for them to be involved in so they will develop on their language skills as they will learn how to speak to their siblings and what age appropriate language they should use. It will also encourage that teenager to be supportive to their parents and their siblings, responsible, if they ever have to look after their sibling while their parents are out and how to cope and deal with arguments. This can be very common between siblings. Unpredictable event
An example of an unpredictable event is an accident. This can hugely impact an individual’s development. Depending on how severe the accident is depends on how much it can impact the individual’s physical development. They may have to learn to walk again if they have become paralysed due to the accident, it’s like they would be learning all the gross motor skills you would’ve learnt as a child. They may have broken bones so their bones would have to repair themselves. They may lose abilities so they would need help doing so until they become more independent again, for example if you’ve broken your ankle usually you would need crutches to walk until their ankle heels. Emotionally they may still feel shocked that the accident has took place and slightly confused due to at the time it happening so quickly. They may blame themselves if others were involved in the accident and they got harmed.
This further more can lead to depression because of the accident. That individual may think ‘why me?’ and feel as if they have done something wrong to deserve this. Socially due to the accident that may prevent them from going out and socialising, especially if the accident happens in their home town as in their eye they won’t want to repeat the accident again so they will try to reduce the risks of it doing so. They may not be able to maintain friendship groups as they won’t be able to see them very often. Intellectually again depending on how the accident affected them, they may suffer with short term memory loss if the accident impacted on their brain. That may also cause them some confusion about what happened during the event which in turn can affect them emotionally as it can be quiet stressful. Due to an accident they may take some time off education so they won’t be able to expand their knowledge as they won’t be attending classes.
Another unpredictable event would your exam results.
This can affect a person emotionally because it can be a very stressful time and your exam results effect on what you can do in the future. If they get the grades they were attending to that can boost that individual’s confidence as they will feel that all that hard work on those years have finally paid off. They may also feel relieved because all the stress of the exams are over and they have a great outcome by the end of it. They may feel proud of themselves for successfully passing their exams and realised that all that revision and paying attention in class was worth it in the end. If you don’t get the grades you want that can make the individual feel very depressed and feel as if they aren’t good enough. They may feel as if they aren’t very smart and therefore unable to accomplish anything in life. That can affect them wanting to move on with their education as they may feel as if it’s a dead end.
It can affect them socially because if a friend of theirs has got really good exam grades and they haven’t, that may prevent them from socialising with them anymore. They may worry that their friends with good exam grades will look down upon them so to prevent this they may feel isolated and stop socialising with them anymore. Intellectually, they may state their smartness of their results when they may have just struggled in those exams because they didn’t know the answer to those questions. This can make individuals judge on how intellectually smart they are. If they do this and consider themselves as not smart that may stop them from learning and expanding their knowledge. On the other hand if they believe they are capable of learning more advance knowledge or just to expand their knowledge on specific subjects then the level of the exam grades will do so as that will give them the courage to do so.
The Nature-Nurture debate- How it impacts on an individual’s development
The nature-nurture debate is a well-known debate. It’s about whether nature of nurture affects your development more Both sides of these arguments can affect an individual in different ways. I will be exploring how adolescents, which is linked in with my client and childhood, which could’ve impacted on my client now, life stages are affected by both nature and nurture. I will be using case studies such as feral children (dog child) and the Mary Bell case as evidence throughout the nature and nurture debate to show that my client could have been affected by nature and nurture. Nature
If you are on the Nature side of the debate you believe that Genetics and biological reasons is why you are the way you are and your physical appearances may have an impact. Childhood Physically it can affect childhood, nature can impact on their health status if Mother or father have a disease you could inherit so that can influence whether the child gets the same illness or not. Childhood life stage is when they develop cognitive skills. This includes their reasoning, learning, memory, decision making and understanding which can get affected. It may mean they take longer than other infants to understand what is being told to them and due to their memory being affected they may not remember it for very long either. Emotionally Children needed that first bond and attachment to be able to develop all their emotions, especially of all love and affection otherwise they may go to the closest individual and find that bond elsewhere or it some cases that need to bond can be switched off so they don’t experience it.
Socially, adolescents and children will be affected in similar way. Having loving and affectionate parents will allow the child to be more socialized and be able to relate to others. With that first bond, children will feel more comfortable as using that carer as a starting place to explore and sometimes that may even carry on into adolescent. This can be proven by the case study feral children- dog child. Due to the fact this child was brought up by dogs it limited her brain development because she was unable to speak she barked like a dog instead because of the fact she was brought up by dogs she learnt off them. This affected the child emotionally because she wasn’t able to communicate to other humans as she didn’t learn how to speak.
Adolescent
The nature side of the debate can affect the life stage adolescent because physically they go through a progress called puberty so therefore nature can affect their characteristics of that individual. It can impact on the height they are growing to and their body shape as they have inherit that from their parents. Intellectually they may be more successful in some aspects than others and their parents may be the same so they may show similarities. For example the adolescent may be very successful at English but struggles in maths and their mom may be the same too. Adolescents may struggle emotionally, especially during the time in which their puberty begins as that can make an individual’s hormones very unbalanced so it can lead to them thinking they weren’t wanted as a baby which can lead to further problems if they carry on believing that. Socially without that first bond they should have developed in their younger years they may not be as reliant on their carer but still may need their support to have the confidence to adventure out and explore the world around them and have the confidence to get some independence for themselves. Nurture
When if you’re on the Nurture side of the debate you believe that the environment has an impact on your development and that it can be affected by your family, peers and the people in the community. Birth to infancy
An infant’s physical development could be affected because if they live in a deprived environment they won’t have all the nutrition’s they needs and may don’t have a healthy balanced diet so therefore can affect other areas like their intellectual development because they won’t have the nutrients to be able to advance in that area. An infant’s emotions are also affected by Nurture. It depends on how much affection you are able to get from your parents or close relative (first relationship) if they don’t know affection and know that first bond. This can make them very closed off to other individuals or it can do the opposite and it can make that individual wanting to attach to anyone else that they could attach themselves too. Not experiencing that first bond of attachment it can make them feel very uncared for and as if that they are of unimportance to anyone.
This can beproven in the Mary Bell case because she didn’t get any affection from her parents, they were both alcoholics so she didn’t experience any love and affection which could have affected her emotions and therefore lead she to perform the actions that she did. She also went into care which could’ve impacted on her emotionally and caused a difficulty to settle down easily as she may have been scared that once she is settled that something might occur that will cause her to go back to care again. Nurture can also affect an infant intellectually. If you don’t socialise with friends and family that often you may not learn how to socialise with individuals of different ages and backgrounds because you won’t have the opportunity to do so.
This can again be proven by the case study- feral children because the child mimicked the dogs and therefore acted more like the dogs than human which also impacted on her development, both intellectually and physically. She began to walk on all fours like a dog which prevented her from having the ability to walk and she also used her mouth to pick up most objects, just like dogs would, which therefore impacted on the gross and fine motor skills she developed. An infant’s Social development is also affected. The way you speak can be affected by the environment around you. This is proven in such cases from feral children. If that child is bought up by dogs then they grow up barking like dogs because that’s the only environment they have been brought up in. It also can be proven by the Mary Bell case because she didn’t get along with her school friends which could’ve had an impact on why she did the offence due to the fact she didn’t like them very much. Adolescent
The nurture side can affect the physical development of an adolescent because it can also affect their physical characteristics. For example if there are a lot of fast food places like McDonalds that can impact on the diet you have as the environment you are in doesn’t have healthy foods then you won’t have the choice of having healthy foods. Your diet can in turn affect an individual’s growth as without a healthy balanced diet with nutrients they may not grow to their full height for example. Your weight that you gain or lose from your diet can impact on your development as well as it can affect your health. Being overweight can cause heart problems when being underweight can lead to failure of vital organs. Emotionally if they don’t experience that love and affection from their parent this could possible lead to further emotional problems and could lead to depression to some cases.
This can further affect them as without being able to build a relationship that may cause them some trust issues so they may feel as if they can only rely on themselves and not others. This can make them very closed off and affect how much they open to individuals. The type of education you go to as an adolescent can also impact an individual; you can go to a state, private or boarding school. Boarding school may give you the opportunities to interact with other individuals more because they are seeing them more often that individuals in state schools for example. Private schools may have the opportunities to teach subjects that state schools wouldn’t, may be due to because they have the money able to do so. This can affect individual’s broader range of knowledge and some may have a greater one than others. Adolescent’s social development is also impacted. If your peers speak in a certain tone or accent then you will gradually pick up their accent and start speaking in that way without you even noticing.
Interactionism
Although this debate is debating whether nature or nurture influences an individual’s development, another factor of this debate is interactionism. This was developed by Hebb 1949. This factor suggests that both nature and nurture have an impact on an individual’s development. Although at some point in their life one may have a bigger impact than the other. An example of how they both affect is that nature can influence the characteristics of a Foetus because that’s the genes they get from their parents. When nurture can also have an impact on the foetus health and physical characteristics because if the mother smokes and drinks while pregnancy the foetus will be getting the same substances so that can impact on their health and whether they are born with any physical disorders that could be an impact of factors such as smoking.
Both of the cases I have used as evidence have both been impacted by nature and nurture although one may have had more of an influenced to that case more than the other. For example the feral children case, nurture had a bigger impact because of her surroundings, being brought up by dogs, made her act the same as them so therefore acted more like a dog. When the Mary Bell case could have been more affected by nature because she didn’t have the love and affection, that first bond, that she should’ve developed which therefore lead to other problems such as not being able to get on with her school friends.
All these factors and cases need to be considered when thinking about my client’s case and whether life factors, events or nature and nurture could’ve made them go ahead with this crime and whether they should be held personally responsible or whether we could help them by looking over those factors and helping them not do this crime again.