LETTER OF THE MONTH

Pre-frontal problems

I keep hearing and reading references to the (alleged) fact that teenagers’ brains have a ‘cognitive deficit’, which explains their poor decision-making and inability to function in the morning. Dr Dean Burnett covered the topic in one of his columns (June, p32) and I find this completely at odds with the conduct of young people before the invention of the term ‘teenager’.

My parents, born in the 1920s, had to leave school aged 14, do heavy and demanding work in factories and shipyards until 7pm, and were then expected to do physical labour around the house. How did they, and generations of young people, manage all that without a ‘fully developed pre-frontal cortex’? Please explain!

Gail Jones, Bedford

Dr Dean Burnett replies…To say teenagers have a cognitive deficit because they haven’t got fully matured brains yet is incorrect. It assumes that only the ‘final’ form of the brain is the one that works, and implies that anything less than that is unfinished and therefore unworkable.

In truth, there’s no mental or cognitive reason why teenagers, even young ones, can’t do complex, important tasks on a regular basis. As you point out, teenagers were once regular presences in the workplace, even dangerous and demanding ones.

It’s perhaps then reasonable to say that teens, with their youthful brains, are capable of doing adult tasks, but not suited to them.

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