WelcomeWelcome to our Middle Adulthood eportfolio. We hope you find the information interesting and informative. One of the things we noticed early in this project is that it is difficult to separate aspects of middle adulthood from each other. For example, physical health affects not only the body, but cognitive functioning as well. Changes in both of these areas can affect self-perception, which in turn affects relationships. Though we did divide the information on our site by categories, as social workers interacting with middle aged individuals it will be important to keep all of these factors in mind to truly understand the person in his or her environment. Another major theme we identified is balancing gains and losses. Some changes that occur in middle adulthood will be viewed as declines or losses. However, there are many positive changes that take place as well. When working with middle aged individuals we can help them identify strengths and positive changes and provide information about life-style choices that can minimize losses during this phase of development. One weakness we saw in our research was that many studies focused primarily on Western cultures and did not address cultural, racial, socioeconomic or other differences. This limitation should be kept in mind when applying this knowledge to work with clients.
-Alysha, Janetta, Ken, Marcus, Shelby, Suwi and Wynter |
Successful People in Middle Adulthood |