Late Adulthood

Human development is a study from the initial prenatal developmental stage to the Late Adulthood phase of life. During each stage major physical, cognitive and psychosocial changes occur according to different theorist. This essay explores two different life stages; Adolescence and Late adulthood whilst comparing and contrasting these stages using supporting theories from Erik Erikson (1956) and Jean Piaget (1969). Within the late adulthood stage a number of factors can increase stress and cause negative effects on the quality of life. This essay also examines how elderly within the late adulthood stage cope best with stress.

Adolescence is categorized as the age between 13 and 18 years. During adolescence many physical and psychosocial changes

During adolescence major neurological changes occur resulting in a reorganised brain, thus allowing the transition between the period of concrete operational stage of thinking, to a formal operational stage of thinking (Piaget, 1969 as cited in Thies & Travers, 2009). Formal operation thinking allows adolescence to consider all possibilities and reason realistically about the future. To attack a problem, teenager’s gather all information possible and make many variable combinations to solve the problem. This type of thinking can cause teenagers to become argumentative about certain topics (Piaget, 1969 as cited in Thies & Travers, 2009). Piaget’s cognitive development theory ends with formal operational thinking and is continually practiced and developed throughout the adult life stages. Adolescence may have the neurological changes necessary to develop processed thinking but they need practice throughout their adult life to create clear thinking, good decisions and advance problem solving (Feldman,

However, cognitive performance can be subjected to a decline with increasing age, whilst other cognitive abilities can remain stable or improve. Cognitive mechanics such as speed of response, visual memory and motor memory decline, whilst cognitive pragmatic such as language, acquired skills, problem solving and wisdom retain good performance and may improve in late adulthood (Thies & Travers, 2009). A variety of factors including genetic predisposition, past and present environmental factors and psychological factors, can contribute to how rapidly the individual’s cognitive abilities decline (Feldman, 2014). For example, Alzheimer’s disease, poor nutrition, or major depression can occur in late adulthood and cause stress to the