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This study used the Camberwell Assessment of Need for adults with Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (CANDID) to examine the social, physical health and mental health needs of 168 young people (aged 14-24 years) with neurodevelopmental disorders and compared young person and parent ratings of need. Agreement was poor in 21 out of 25 domains. Parents consistently reported higher levels of need than young people in the majority of domains although young people with ADHD reported significantly more needs in physical health, eyesight/hearing, seizures, other mental health problems and safety of others than their parents. Both parent and young person perspectives of needs are necessary to ensure that needs that are predictive of current or future poor outcomes are not missed.

If there were a time in life that was “built” for substance use onset and escalation, it would certainly be adolescence. Individual and social context changes are more pervasive and rapid during adolescence than during any other time of life. Amidst these ubiquitous developmental changes, it is no coincidence that interest in and opportunity for alcohol and other drug use begins for most young people. There are clear and numerous risks associated with alcohol and other drug use during adolescence; however, from the young person’s perspective, substance use experimentation can also serve positive social and identity functions. Our purpose in this chapter is to provide a selective summary and integration of the literature on the epidemiology and etiology of substance use during adolescence from a developmental perspective.

This chapter describes the approach to the care of children with gender dysphoria as developed in the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in London. It makes references to the current and historical context of the early services in Toronto and Utrecht/Amsterdam. The reasons for offering professional help are discussed in a context that challenges stereotyping and stigmatization. The historical background of the service is described in relation to Toronto and Utrecht/Amsterdam.

What is the relationship between hearing aids, corrective lenses, and smart textiles1? At first glance, none – but one thread, often invisible– is revealing in terms of the future of smart textiles. Hearing aids address a niche market, albeit a large niche – those persons (mostly elderly) suffering fromwhat we still call today “impairment” – a hearing impairment. But is it not the same for corrective lenses? Can a young person or adolescent be considered an “impaired person”? Today, both corrective lenses and hearing aids improve human body functioning: corrective lenses are mainstream products that correct basic functions; and hearing aids are on the way to becoming mainstream products.

Restorative justice can be viewed as a victim-centred approach which conceptualises criminal behaviour in a very different manner from which it has been traditionally conceived within orthodox models of criminal justice. In recent years, it has come to exert an increasingly strong influence over juvenile justice systems as policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the capacity of the traditional criminal justice system to deliver participatory processes and fair outcomes that are capable of benefiting victims, offenders and society at large.

How do we know if American children and adolescents are doing well in life? WhatvocabularydoAmericanparents, teachers, policymakers, andoftenyoung people themselves use to describe a young person—a person in the first two or so decades of life—who is showing successful development? All too often in theUnited Stateswe discuss positive development in regard to the absence of negative or undesirable behaviors. Typically, such descriptions are foundedon the assumption that children are “broken” or indanger of becoming “broken” (Benson, 2003), and thus we regard young people as “problems to be managed” (Roth, Brooks-Gunn, Murray, & Foster, 1998). As such, when we describe a successful young person we speak about a youth whose problems have been managed or are, at best, absent. We might say, then, that a youth who is manifesting behavior indicative of positive development is someone who is not taking drugs or using alcohol, is not engaging in unsafe sex, and is not participating in crime or violence. Benson (2003) explains that the focus in Americans’ discussions of youth on their problems and the use by Americans of a vocabulary that stresses the risks and dangers of young people occur because we have

Advances in our understanding of adaptation are rooted in the seminal work of Garmezy, Rutter, Werner, and others who “discovered” a not inconsiderable proportion of children who, thought to be at risk for current and future maladaptation, showed few or no signs of pathology and often exhibited high levels of competence (Garmezy, 1974; Rutter, 1979; Werner & Smith, 1982). Investigating what made a difference in this group of children’s lives led at first to descriptions of correlates of positive development among children living in high-risk contexts and has progressed to complex process models allowing for multiple causal effects across multiple ecologies (Masten, 1999a). Two of the great contributions from this line of work have focused on elucidating the mechanisms thought to underlie both adaptive and maladaptive developmental trajectories under conditions of adversity, as well as advancing the position that studies of positive adaptation and competence should be studied alongside the more dominant models of risk, pathology, and treatment (Garmezy, 1974; Rutter, 1979; Masten, 2001). These advancements in turn have been instrumental in current intervention and prevention practices (Rolf & Johnson, 1999).

It is very challenging to be a young person in today’s global climate. The harsh reality is that the competition for limited resources whether economic, political, cultural, or territorial have created a world where war and armed conflict can be found in virtually every corner. Children in conflict areas are exposed to many overwhelming experiences, including violence, death, torture, separation from family members, and multiple personal losses (Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, 2002).

Coercion theory (Patterson, 1982) offers an illustrative theoretical framework that connects important aspects of the family risk and protective factor research literature to a range of later family-related intervention efforts. This theory links the quality of parent-youth interaction in childhood and adolescence and a young person’s adjustment across settings and developmental periods. In this perspective, the development of child and adolescent problem behaviors is largely framed in terms of the quality of family interactions.

Most young people are not bereft of positive interactions with their parents and other adults in the extended family, or with adults such as teachers, after-school program leaders, and youth workers in religious congregations. Obviously, all these adults, to varying degrees, can and do play positive roles in young people’s development, and playing these roles is the job of these adults. It is clearly codified in law, regulations, and social expectations that families and adults in the formal institutions that kids frequent—schools, youth programs, congregations—have a measure, usually a high degree, of responsibility for the well-being of those young people in their charge. More recently, the role of one- on-one mentor to a young person has emerged as a possibility for many adults. As welcome as those mentoring relationships are, however, they too are usually formal ones, offered within the structure of a program or organization. They also tend to be provided mainly to young people perceived as being at risk, not those basically doing “OK” but who could benefit from more sustained adult relationships.

Adolescence is a challenging and complex stage in human development, involving major physical, hormonal, emotional and psychological changes, which affect both the young person involved, and members of his or her family1. The burden of having to deal with a chronic disease such as diabetes at this time of life adds further to the potential for instability and turmoil. Diabetes is almost always insulin-dependent or type 1 at this age, although type 2 is now increasingly recognized in adolescence, particularly in African and Native American and similar ethnic groups2.

The available evidence suggests that cultural assumptions and social norms about the appropriate roles of parents and unrelated adults may be a significant force that keeps many adults from contributing more positively to the development of the young people around them. In other words, the ambivalence American adults seem to have about their relationships with children and youth other than their own may stem from a lack of clarity and consensus about how they are expected to behave, and about the perceived consequences, both positive and negative, for behaving one way or another.

Inventing super-intelligent machines is the greatest engineering adventure of human history. If you are a young person who likes science and engineering, this would be a very interesting project to get involved with. It is happening in numerous universities, government research labs and corporations. It is happening among engineers who are building prototypes and designing intelligence into commercial products. It is also happening among biologists who are trying to figure out how animal and human brains work.