ABSTRACT
Physical growth and the changes associated with pubertal development make biological functioning a particularly salient domain. Dyadic and social network relationships, involving both same-sex and opposite-sex peers, become a concern, as do psychological issues, such as the nature of the self-concept and the expression and self-regulation of emotions. School achievement, or adequacy of school performance, is assessed by use of a teacher rating scale developed by Harter to correspond to the SPP scale; teachers rate the competency or adequacy of a student’s school performance in regard to the first five of the aforementioned attributes measured by the SPP. The measure of psychosocial functioning derived from the peer group is the child’s positive and negative peer relations. However, pubertal maturation and the changes in body configuration and appearance it involves (e.g., regarding muscle and fat distributions, breast development for girls, and facial hair for boys) may not become salient until later in the early adolescent period.
