Normal Growth and Development during Adolescence

Abstract

ADOLESCENCE, according to Webster's first definition, is "the state or process of growing up from childhood to manhood or womanhood," and this is the meaning that will be given to the term in this review. Some confusion is apparent in the literature because a second definition by Webster limits adolescence to a much shorter terminal phase of the developmental period — that is, "the period of life between puberty and manhood."As examples of the confusion caused by this difference of interpretation, one author refers to the "pubescent period" in girls as that preceding the menarche and the "adolescent period" . . .