ABSTRACT
Forehand and Ciccone have clearly done a service to the field by giving us a thoughtful and scholarly essay on competency and consequences. They do an excellent job of summarizing the many studies that provide scientific support for adolescents’ capacity to give informed consent. They present fascinating data from studies designed to test adolescents’ abilities in relation to legal definitions of competency on the ability to make medical decisions. Although cognitive tests suggest that adolescents demonstrate maturity with regard to decision making, studies of brain physiology and anatomy in adolescence seem to point in the opposite direction, indicating that the adolescent brain is not fully developed.
