DEVELOPMENTAL PREVIEWING - ENHANCING THE ADOLESCENTS PREDICTIONS OF BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES

The adolescent years are a time of significant biopsychosocial change. Adolescents develop a variety of cognitive skills that enable them to evaluate future consequences, weigh alternatives, and select behavior s. If these cognitive skills have not matured fully, however, the fema le adolescent may be predisposed to enact risk-taking behaviors, such as becoming pregnant. An intervention technique that encourages adoles cents to predict the consequences of their actions may therefore be be neficial. One such technique, labeled previewing, promotes the cogniti ve skills necessary for averting future unplanned pregnancies and, in the event the adolescent has become a mother, for establishing a more adaptive relationship with the infant.