What cognitive ability improves in adolescents?

The cognitive ability that improves in adolescents is reading comprehension. During adolescence, there is significant development in various cognitive skills, and one of the most notable areas is language and literacy. As adolescents engage more deeply with complex texts, they enhance their ability to understand, interpret, and critically analyze written material. This improvement can be attributed to increased cognitive processing capabilities and exposure to more diverse and sophisticated language structures in school and media.

Reading comprehension is crucial for academic success and lifelong learning. Adolescents are better able to infer meanings, evaluate arguments, and integrate information from different sources, which are skills that become particularly valuable in high school and beyond. This cognitive growth lays the foundation for more advanced academic skills, including critical thinking and analytical reasoning, which continue to develop into adulthood.

In contrast, while physical coordination, basic arithmetic skills, and emotional intelligence are important in their own right, they do not specifically highlight the significant improvement seen in cognitive abilities like reading comprehension during adolescence. Each of these skills may develop at different rates or in different contexts, but reading comprehension experiences a marked enhancement during this critical developmental stage.