Ahna Ballonoff Suleiman

Multiple dimensions of peer influence in adolescent romantic and sexual relationships: a descriptive, qualitative perspective.

Adolescents undergo critical developmental transformations that increase the salience of peer influence. Peer interactions (platonic and romantic) have been found to have both a positive and negative influence on adolescent attitudes and behaviors related to romantic relationships and sexual behavior. This study used qualitative methodology to explore how peers influence romantic and sexual behavior. Forty adolescents participated in individual semi-structured interviews. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, and analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. The concept of peer influence on romantic relationships and sexual behavior emerged as a key theme. Youth described that platonic peers (friends) influenced their relationships and sexual behavior including pressuring friends into relationships, establishing relationships as currency for popularity and social status, and creating relationship norm and expectations. Romantic peers also motivated relationship and sexual behavior as youth described engaging in behavior to avoid hurting and successfully pleasing their partners. Future research should explore multiple types of peer influence in order to better inform interventions to improve the quality of adolescents’ romantic and sexual relationships.

Leveraging Neuroscience to Inform Adolescent Health: The Need for an Innovative Transdisciplinary Developmental Science of Adolescence

In this article, we consider how to leverage some of the rapid advances in developmental neuroscience in ways that can improve adolescent health. We provide a brief overview of several key areas of scientific progress relevant to these issues. We then focus on two examples of important health problems that increase sharply during adolescence: sleep problems and affective disorders. These examples illustrate how an integrative, developmental science approach provides new insights into treatment and intervention. They also highlight a cornerstone principle: how a deeper understanding of potentially modifiable factors-at key developmental inflection points along the trajectory toward clinical disorders-is beginning to inform, and may eventually transform, a broad range of innovative early intervention strategies to improve adolescent health.

The importance of sexual and romantic development in understanding the developmental neuroscience of adolescence.

In this issue, papers by Shulman and colleaugues (2016); Nelson t al. (2016) present theoretical accounts of developmental changes n risk-taking behavior and in social behavior, respectively. Both apers synthesize a large volume of neuroimaging literature in rder to illuminate mechanisms of developmental change, and hey highlight the incredibly rapid pace of research in developental cognitive neuroscience in advancing our understanding of dolescence. Yet it is crucial that neuroscience-based theories of dolescent development draw not only on neuroimaging studies, ut also on the wealth of psychological, sociological, and anthroological data on adolescent development. In this commentary, e focus on some key aspects of the developmental science of dolescence that we believe warrant considerably more attenion in “dual-process” and “imbalance” models of adolescent brain evelopment. Sex, love, and romance are core dimensions of adoescent development, with implications for adolescents’ motivations, motional experiences, social learning, decision making, and identity ormation.

School‐Based Sex Education and Neuroscience: What We Know About Sex, Romance, Marriage, and Adolescent Brain Development

BACKGROUND Many school-based abstinence-only sex education curricula state that sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological effects. Recent advances in neuroscience have expanded our understanding of the neural underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, sexual desire, and sexual behavior and improved our understanding of adolescent brain development. METHODS In this article, we review recent advances in neuroscience and clarify what is known about the link between neural development and adolescent romantic and sexual behavior and what opportunities exist for future research. RESULTS Whereas the evidence from neuroscience does not yet allow for clear conclusions about the cost or benefits of early romantic relationships and sexual behavior, it does indicate that providing developmentally appropriate education contributes to lifelong sexual health. CONCLUSIONS Developing policies and practices for school-based sex education that reflect current research will best support the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents throughout their lives.

Importance of investing in adolescence from a developmental science perspective

This review summarizes the case for investing in adolescence as a period of rapid growth, learning, adaptation, and formational neurobiological development. Adolescence is a dynamic maturational period during which young lives can pivot rapidly—in both negative and positive directions. Scientific progress in understanding adolescent development provides actionable insights into windows of opportunity during which policies can have a positive impact on developmental trajectories relating to health, education, and social and economic success. Given current global changes and challenges that affect adolescents, there is a compelling need to leverage these advances in developmental science to inform strategic investments in adolescent health.

Becoming a sexual being: The 'elephant in the room' of adolescent brain development.

Highlights • Despite progress in developmental neuroscience of adolescence, there has been little focus on sexual and romantic development.• Frameworks of pubertal maturation need to consider pubertal brain maturation as necessary for romantic and reproductive success.• Developmental neuroscience has the potential to improve adolescent romantic, sexual, and reproductive health outcomes.

Research in the Integration of Behavioral Health for Adolescents and Young Adults in Primary Care Settings: A Systematic Review.

Despite the recognition that behavioral and medical health conditions are frequently intertwined, the existing health care system divides management for these issues into separate settings. This separation results in increased barriers to receipt of care and contributes to problems of underdetection, inappropriate diagnosis, and lack of treatment engagement. Adolescents and young adults with mental health conditions have some of the lowest rates of treatment for their conditions of all age groups. Integration of behavioral health into primary care settings has the potential to address these barriers and improve outcomes for adolescents and young adults. In this paper, we review the current research literature for behavioral health integration in the adolescent and young adult population and make recommendations for needed research to move the field forward.

Motivations for Sex Among Low-Income African American Young Women

African American young women exhibit higher risk for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, compared with European American women, and this is particularly true for African American women living in low-income contexts. We used rigorous qualitative methods, that is, domain analysis, including free listing (n = 20), similarity assessment (n = 25), and focus groups (four groups), to elicit self-described motivations for sex among low-income African American young women (19-22 years). Analyses revealed six clusters: Love/Feelings, For Fun, Curiosity, Pressured, For Money, and For Material Things. Focus groups explored how African American women interpreted the clusters in light of condom use expectations. Participants expressed the importance of using condoms in risky situations, yet endorsed condom use during casual sexual encounters less than half the time. This study highlights the need for more effective intervention strategies to increase condom use expectations among low-income African American women, particularly in casual relationships where perceived risk is already high.

Readability of Educational Materials to Support Parent Sexual Communication With Their Children and Adolescents

Sexual communication is a principal means of transmitting sexual values, expectations, and knowledge from parents to their children and adolescents. Many parents seek information and guidance to support talking with their children about sex and sexuality. Parent education materials can deliver this guidance but must use appropriate readability levels to facilitate comprehension and motivation. This study appraised the readability of educational materials to support parent sexual communication with their children. Fifty brochures, pamphlets, and booklets were analyzed using the Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) index methods. Mean readability grade-level scores were 8.3 (range = 4.5–12.8), 9.7 (range = 5.5–14.9), and 10.1 (range = 6.7–13.9), respectively. Informed by National Institutes of Health–recommended 6th to 7th grade levels and American Medical Association–recommended 5th to 6th grade levels, percentages falling at or below the 7.0 grade level were calculated as 38%, 12%, and 2% and those falling at or below the 6.0 grade level were calculated as 12%, 2%, and 0% based on the Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, and SMOG methods, respectively. These analyses indicate that the majority of educational materials available online to support parents’ communication with their children about sex and sexuality do not meet the needs of many or most parents. Efforts to improve the accessibility of these materials are warranted.