Our nation's youth hold the key to our future well-being. Investing generously in them will create a “more perfect union.” That is the central message of this consensus report on the “promise of adolescence” sponsored by the Funders for Adolescent Science Translation, a consortium of foundations that came together with the aim of using science to produce more equitable and positive life outcomes for youth. This report takes its place in a sequence of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reports exploring the science of child and adolescent development that began with From Neurons to Neighborhoods, the path-breaking Institute of Medicine study on the science of early childhood development published in 2000.

The science of adolescent development explores the neurobiological and socio-behavioral processes that underlie the unique and fascinating process of maturation. The 21st century has featured extraordinary advances in knowledge about the unique developmental processes—and challenges—of adolescence as well as the important role of this developmental period in shaping the trajectory of the life course. Our committee's assignment was to synthesize these exciting advances in the science of adolescent development and draw out their implications for the social systems charged with helping all adolescents flourish.

This committee's study is a companion to a parallel study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation exploring the neurobiological and socio-behavioral sciences' findings concerning childhood development from the prenatal period through early childhood. Together, these two reports consolidate the extraordinary advances in the science of human development in order to inform child- and youth-serving institutions and policy makers. In this respect, they also complement a 2014 Health Resources and Services Administration-funded study focused on improving the safety and wellbeing of young adults.

Studying adolescents provides a rich opportunity for exploring the developing mind. For one thing, the fascinating process of evolving self-awareness—indeed, a preoccupation with self—is heightened during adolescence and our individual memories of that experience tend to be especially vivid. In addition, our sense of identity—of who we are and who we want to be—is taking shape during adolescence. We all tend to remember these experiences many years later.

As the report explains, the adolescent brain undergoes a remarkable transformation between puberty and the mid-20s that underpins amazing advances in learning and creativity. The plasticity of the adolescent brain also provides the potential for resilient responses to childhood trauma and distress. Personal experience teaches us, of course, that the excitement and emotional preoccupations of adolescence can yield both opportunity and risk. As a society, we bear a collective obligation to unleash the creativity of the adolescent brain while cushioning adolescents from experiences that could endanger their future well-being.

Another central theme of this report, signified by its subtitle, is that our nation must ensure that the “promise of adolescence” is realized for all adolescents. As the report shows, millions of adolescents are being left behind because they have lacked equal opportunity to succeed. Disparities in developmental outcomes for disadvantaged youth are attributable to lack of adequate resources and supports in their families and in the neighborhoods where they live, as well as the effects of bias and discrimination. The committee has concluded that we have the knowledge needed to reduce these disparities and close the opportunity gap. The committee has also expressed its collective view that these remedial measures should be taken because it is unjust (and contrary to the nation's collective self-interest) to allow these disparities to continue. We did so because this value judgment is implicit in our charge.

On behalf of the National Academies and its Board on Children, Youth and Families, I want to thank the member foundations of Funders for Adolescent Science Translation for sponsoring this important study. I am deeply grateful to Emily Backes and the National Academies staff for their extraordinary skill and diligence, and most of all, to my fellow members of the committee. It has been a pleasure to work with such talented colleagues on this interesting and important project. I look forward to working with them, as well as our sponsors, to disseminate the committee's findings and implement its recommendations for developmentally informed youth-serving systems.

I want to close with a personal observation. The Virginia Bar Association, to which I belong, devoted the plenary session of its annual meeting in 2019 to a panel discussion lamenting the incivility of discourse in our fractious society. As we discussed what our organization can and should do about it, I observed that our current state of polarization has emerged and deepened over several decades and that remedial efforts should focus on our young people, beginning in adolescence when they are learning how people differ from one another and as they are discovering (and shaping) their own identities. As parents and teachers, our obligation is to help them develop the desire, and the skill, to listen to each other and to respect differences in their beliefs and values. We need to invest in our youngsters to repair our weakened (and imperfect) union.

Richard J. Bonnie, Chair

Committee on the Neurobiolgoical and Socio-behavioral Science of Adolescent Development and Its Applications