Cognitive Development Issues in Drug Abusing Troubled Teens

By Curtis Reed

C.A.R.E. is a consortium of residential treatment centers that offer treatment programs for drug abusing troubled teens who are struggling with cognitive development issues. Our schools each provide a team of medical professionals who will work with you and your child to develop a customized treatment plan, set goals and monitor progress. Our licensed therapists, nurses and other staff members have expertise and experience in treating teens who abuse drugs. Our mission is to provide compassionate, confidential, and professional therapeutic services for boys and girls with addiction, so they can return home ready to fulfill a happy and productive life. 

During adolescence, the developing teen obtains the ability to analyze all logical relationships within a problem. The shift from concrete thinking to logical reasoning occurs over time. Each child progresses at a different speed in developing their ability to think and reason and each child develops their own view of the world. Some adolescents may not be able to apply logical thinking to personal dilemmas or social situations. So, when social or emotional issues come up, there is an interference in the ability to think in more complex ways, such as logical reasoning.

Interrupting the Development of the Brain Functions Can Have Lifelong Effects

Cognitive control involves being able to control attention and reducing interfering thoughts such as making a real effort to stick with a task, avoiding interfering thoughts or environmental events, and instead doing what is most effective, stopping and thinking before acting to avoid blurting out something that a minute or two later they wished they hadn’t said, and finishing the important task even if they think it’s boring.

Cognitive development occurs during adolescence. Interrupting the development of the brain functions, through drugs, can have lifelong effects for drug abusing troubled teens. Research suggests that drugs in adolescents can cause serious detrimental effects on the development of the teenage mind. Drug use in teens alter normal developmental processes in a way that negatively impacts learning and social adjustment into adulthood. During adolescent brain development, the part of the brain that uses judgment, social skills and decision making is disrupted with drug use, interrupting and stopping cognitive development that may continue with adult cognition issues.

At C.A.R.E., teens have the opportunity to work on coping skills, accountability, respect, morals and ethics, stress management, anger management, solution oriented thinking and planning, and various therapeutic options. Individual treatment plans are created, addressing the individual needs of each teen and working with individual issues in private sessions.