ABSTRACT
The rise in adolescent pregnancies and childbearing has led to increased interest in the factors potentially affecting child rearing competence in teenage mothers. Clearly, competent child rearing requires that a parent have mature judgment, the ability to anticipate the child’s needs, and the resources to meet the child’s needs, as well as those of the parent. Two theoretical models provide particularly useful conceptualizations of the link between pubertal maturation and cognitive and psychosocial development, although others could be proposed as well. Of the few studies examining pubertal status in relation to other aspects of development, most have used a measure of relative timing of maturation. Adolescence is thought to be a time of major cognitive advances which profoundly alter children’s conceptions of themselves and the world, and which bring their intellectual capacities up to those of adults. Typically between the ages of 12 and 15 years, the child enters the stage of formal operations—and final stage of cognitive development.
