Everyone knows that teens have a larger appetite for quick rewards than either adults or children.  But up until now scientists have been uncertain about whether this tendency had any beneficial impact. Some have argued, in fact, that this propensity is maladaptive insofar as adolescents’ engage in risky behavior (e.g. joyrides, drugs, sex) to get...Read More

A new study reported on in the journal Psychological Science reports that high school students who were given a simple reading and writing exercise at the beginning of the school year designed to communicate the idea that social traits are not fixed but can change over time, were better able to meet stressful situations than...Read More

There’s been a lot of buzz in the news over the past few days about a humongous new longitudinal study being launched by the National Institutes of Health in conjunction with several universities to study the brains of 10,000 kids starting at age 9-10 and on into their early twenties using structural and functional brain imaging...Read More

In this video, I explore six key findings from recent research into how the adolescent brain functions and develops over time.  To further explore these issues, see my book The Power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students.   Below is the transcript of the video: Hi, I’m Dr. Thomas...Read More

I’m starting a new video series based upon my book The Power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students (ASCD).  This is the first video, entitled ”The Passion and Promise of the Teenage Years.”  For those of you who prefer to read a transcript rather than watch the video, I’ve...Read More