Growth and Development of the Preadolescent

Blair and Burton examine literature on the preadolescent, gathered from various fields, and analyze, synthesize, and summarize findings on this topic. Their results highlight the importance of social class and developmental tasks in relation to the dramatic levels of maturation that occur in this stage of life. First, the preadolescent is strongly influenced by his peer group and that this peer society is necessary for the child's growth. The child society is an inter- mediate step between adult domination and membership in the adult society. Second, the preadolescent is essentially a realist, who wants to know about reality, so science and sex education are taught more easily at that age level than at adolescence, since the pre-adolescent child is more objective and less emotional than is the adolescent. A third idea is that remediation in study skills or in attitude is progressively more difficult after grade four. Persons who know the field will find the book useful.