Development+Milestones

** **Early Adolescence Age 11-13**
 * Development Milestones
 * **Increase vocabulary to 40,000 words (nearly double from ages 8-9)**
 * **Choose friends based on common interests, rather than parent selection**
 * **Begin the process of sexual maturation, both physically and emotionally**
 * **Become more interested in community goals — service to others**

**Middle Adolescence Age 14 to 16**
 * **Increase their hypothetical reasoning abilities**
 * **Conduct increasing future planning**
 * **Experience further sexual maturation and explore issues of sexual identity**
 * **Exhibit greater complexity of moral reasoning, including abstract principles such as unselfishness and altruism**
 * **Tend to rely increasingly on similarity of values and shared interests to form friendships**
 * **Spend majority of time with friends, less time with parents**
 * **Refine interests and aptitudes, gain proficiency in one or more activities**