Running head: PEPSI SCREENING 1

PEPSI Screening, EDU 220

Takeah L. Dollison

College of Southern Nevada

PEPSI SCREENING 2

Biography

This Screening is on Treyanna Brackney, an 18-year-old senior at Bonanza High School

and my little sister. She was born in Anchorage, Alaska and lived there for the first 16 years of

her life as the youngest of three. There is me, age 26, and a brother in the middle, age 21. T

young ages we were placed in foster care, and she was still an infant. For almost the first three

years of her life she stayed there, only knowing of our mother as someone she saw sometimes

and never knowing her father. Then she released back into her mother’s custody, where my

brother and I already resided. From there, she had to handle moving homes every year,

sometimes multiple times, in a low-income, single-parent home. For years, our mother rotated

boyfriends until she settled with one man who had problems leading to all of us, especially

Treyanna, developing anxiety and depression.

Similar to other younger siblings, she was catered to more often and fought constantly

with the middle brother but got along with me as the oldest. When she was 16, before her

sophomore year of high school, I convinced our mother to let her move from Anchorage to Las

Vegas and live with me for emotional and mental support. While with me, her grades improved

until she had a 3.1 GPA and she was on her way to being on the varsity flag football team until

she tore her ACL. She also was able to wean off of the anxiety medications she had been on and

had stopped self-harming. This changed when she turned 18 in October 2019. She decided to

move in with her boyfriend and, over time, her school attendance and grades dropped.
PEPSI SCREENING 3

Physical Development

At the age of 18, Treyanna is done growing, as attested by Angela Morelli at Gracepoint

Wellness, who advised, “Girls reach their adult height between the ages of 10 and 16 years”

(Morelli, "Adolescent Physical Development"). At 5’3” Morelli also she is slightly below

average in height and being about 165 pounds gives her a healthy, athletic build. Still, she has to

work at keeping it that way, since she spends a good portion of her time lying in bed watching

Netflix and interacting on social media. This could be detrimental in more ones than one. First, is

the fact that all the time she spends laying down on her phone is less time she is doing anything

active. This is especially true considering 45% of teens stated they were on the internet almost

constantly (Anderson & Jiang, 2019). Secondly, the effect social media has on the self-esteem of

teenage girls can be extremely negative. Treyanna will spend hours doing her make-up and

taking pictures to find the perfect one to post. This is bad for her physically, since the Royal

Society for Public Health conducted a survey and found that, among other things, platforms like

Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter causes a poor body image (Ehmke & Child Mind

Institute, "How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers").

Luckily for Treyanna, she doesn’t have many physical ailments. She keeps an inhaler on

hand to help with exercise-induced asthma. She also needs glasses, but just for reading. She takes

care to look good whether she leaves the house and loves to do make-up, even if it means just

washing it off afterward. She also tends to keep a boyfriend, which gives her more motivation to

stay put together.

PEPSI SCREENING 4

Emotional Development

For the most part, Treyanna shows good emotional development. She is usually

calm and enjoys making people laugh. That being said, her childhood left a mark on her

emotional state. On top of the usual turmoil associated with puberty, she was also dealing with

being the last child in an unbalanced house. I had been long gone and our brother was on his way

to basic training for the Marines. She was struggling with feeling lonely and having to deal with

our mother and her husband, who constantly argued and had problems with alcohol abuse. She

was sleeping all the time, getting poor grades, lying, and started smoking weed, which are all

signs of depression and, according to Psychology Applied to Teaching, “take on added

significance when accompanied by…parents who commit abuse or use drugs and alcohol

excessively” (Snowman & McCown, 2015). This escalated to Treyanna committing self-harm by

way of cutting herself. Eventually, she joined the 8.6% of high school students who attempted

suicide between September 2014 and December 2015 (Kann, et al., 2017).

After this occurred, she was given medicine and I took her in to give her a quiet, calm

place to regroup and focus on herself. After getting over her homesickness, Treyanna blossomed.

She became her normal, funny self, made new friends and was always going to the mall or

movies, having sleepovers, and started playing sports again. She was even able to wean off of

her medicine after the first year. Now, in her senior year of high school, her friendships are with

those who share her values and she is more apt to have romantic relationships with positive

emotional and physical intimacy, all signs of her becoming an adult per the State Adolescent

Health Resource Center (Teipel, "Late Adolescence…"). That said, she still has to work on

controlling emotional outbursts, as she is prone to letting her anger get the best of her.
PEPSI SCREENING 5

Philosophical Development

Many have agreed that philosophical development in late adolescence moves the child

from thinking only of themselves to thinking of the bigger picture, including thinking more

critically. Of all the development areas, Treyanna struggles with this the most. While she was

raised Baptist, she has chosen not to follow anything religious. She isn’t big into reading

anything and it appears as if she is only interested in getting to beauty school as quickly as can

even though she isn’t doing what’s needed to get her high school diploma. When she first moved

to Las Vegas she was focused on not just attending school but doing her best. Yet, the most recent

grades show she has become one of the “25-30% of high school student population [that] attends

and participates because of the social milieu” (Ellsworth, "Portrait of the Late Adolescent").

Simply put, her main reason for going to school is socializing. And unlike the rest of the students

in the same category, she is slowly ending any attempts she made to participate.

Similarly, she doesn’t seem to be taking that final step towards stage four of membership

in the community since she still spends significant time thinking only of herself and blaming

others (Ellsworth, "Being aware of being "real""). Still, she is making some strides. She looked

and found a job on her own and even applied to the beauty school of her choice without help,

putting her right on the mark for focusing on career decisions ("Cognitive Development in the

Teen Years"). She is taking a slight interest in politics which is better than nothing with the

troubling events currently happening. She has developed a good sense of right and wrong and

still works on dong what she knows is right. She must also work on gaining a personal moral

compass and being able to make decisions without worrying about the opinions of others.
PEPSI SCREENING 6

Social Development

As someone who has always been outgoing when making friends, Treyanna is spot on for

her social development. However, now she isn’t just making friends but finding other people

who share her values and will create deeper relationships just like K. Teipel pointed out in his

report with State Adolescent Health Resource Report ("Late Adolescence…"). She is confident

in speaking her mind and has no problem making eye contact, even when she’s worried about

getting peer approval, something that J’Anne Ellsworth says takes much of a young

adolescence’s energy (Ellsworth, "Being aware of being "real""). In the end, her confidence and

ability to work as a team with others even helped her go from junior varsity to varsity her first

year playing flag football.

She is hitting the curve on her sexual maturity as well. According to Angela Morelli, “in

general, girls' interest in sex is associated with forming and maintaining long-term, committed

relationships” ("Middle to Late Adolescence"). Treyanna follows this as her previous relationship

was over a year and her current one is going on 9 months. The fact that she goes from one

relationship too another is also explained by 3-C Family Services, “[since] late adolescents

attempt to find mutually satisfying relationships” she will keep trying to find someone (“Services

for Teen…”). Plus, she has to be dealing with issues since her dad has only ever let her down

when he came into the picture and, as the youngest, she was left dealing with feeling abandoned

at our parents’ house. By finding someone she can build intimacy with, she is also looking for the

person who will not leave her and will choose her over everyone else.
PEPSI SCREENING 7

Intellectual Development

While not seeming intellectually challenged, Treyanna doesn’t use critical and abstract

thinking processes very often. It was confusing until I read an assessment from J. Piaget that

advised, “the rate at which a child progresses through the developmental succession may vary,

especially from one culture to another” (Piaget, 1972). Also, when I looked closer, her abilities

came out in surprising places. For instance, it was her first year playing flag football, but she

seemed to have a mind for remembering the different plays. While playing flag football Treyanna

also showed an amazing ability to think on her feet, consider multiple points of view, and form

new ideas to help her team, all things included on Fraser Health’s list of capabilities for late

adolescence ("Intellectual development in children").

Also, while she doesn’t show much interest in common school topics, Treyanna has a lot

of interest in other things, like the beauty industry. She takes the initiative to watch hours of

videos to teach herself techniques and styles for make-up and hair then makes videos to show off

her new skills. Yet, J’Anne Ellsworth says, “the student often wishes to "change the world" based

on ideas and the sheer will to make a difference, solve problems” but this isn’t seen much with

Treyanna (Ellsworth, "Being aware of being "real""). While she does have interests and devotes

herself to them tirelessly, nothing to do with bettering the world is on that list on interests. She is

less developed in this way, something that Cleveland Clinic warns as “adolescents still often

display egocentric behaviors and attitudes” ("Adolescent Development", 2018).

PEPSI SCREENING 8

PEPSI Graph
PEPSI SCREENING 9

PEPSI Ratings
14

12

10

0
Physical Emotional Philosophical Social Intellectual

Ratings Normal
PEPSI SCREENING 10

Recommendation

Overall, Treyanna has room for development but isn’t doing that bad. Physically, she is

doing a little better than others her age. She plays sports and has only minor physical conditions.

The best thing for her to do would be to continue the path she’s on now. At most, all she’d need

to do is increase her physical activities to at least 30 minutes a day. The biggest improvement

will need to be her diet. She needs to incorporate less processed foods and cut back on all the hot

sauce. As she gets older, she will also need to be careful of overdoing any substance abuse, even

if it is just drinking alcohol. This will be particularly important since having a family history of

substance abuse puts her at more risk of falling prey to it herself.

Emotionally, Treyanna has some work to do. While she has gotten to the point of being

able to stand up for herself, she needs to be able to take responsibility for her actions. She is

great at making friends and making romantic connections, but I believe she would be better

served learning to be happy by herself first. Her struggle with abandonment could make her do

or put up with things she normally wouldn’t. I believe this ties in with increasing her

philosophical development. Treyanna needs to focus on thinking abstractly and moving away

from a “me” mentality to looking at the world. She might benefit from working as a volunteer or

more community work.

Socially, Treyanna is doing great. She’s great at making friends and works great on teams

as shown by her sports history. She does struggle with feelings of abandonment, which can cause

her to stay in stressful situations even when she knows it’s time to back out. That’s why I think

Treyanna needs to learn to say no and think more of her peace of mind. As mentioned above, she

also needs to learn to be happy by herself because, once this is achieved, she would be less

willing to put up with unnecessary drama. Lastly, her main focus intellectually needs to be
PEPSI SCREENING 11

applying herself. She isn’t a genius but she has more than enough intelligence to get wherever

she wants to be – if she was willing to put in the work. A lot of times she makes excuses for why

she doesn’t get work done, so accepting responsibility for her actions will also be a tool in

improving her intellectual development.

PEPSI SCREENING 12

References

Adolescent Development. (2018, June 11). Retrieved March 21, 2020, from

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7060-adolescent-development

Anderson, M., & Jiang, J. (2019, December 31). Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018.

Retrieved March 18, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-

social-media-technology-2018/

Cognitive Development in the Teen Years. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2020, from

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?

ContentTypeID=90&ContentID=P01594

Ehmke, R., & Child Mind Institute. (n.d.). How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers.

Retrieved March 18, 2020, from https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-

affects-teenagers/

Ellsworth, J. A. (1999). Being aware of being "real". Retrieved March 19, 2020, from

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/ese504/class/pepsi/reading2-1-2.html

Ellsworth, J. A. (1999). Portrait of the Late Adolescent. Retrieved March 19, 2020, from

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/ese504/class/adolescence/Onlinereading3.html

Intellectual development in children. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2020, from

https://www.fraserhealth.ca/health-topics-a-to-z/children-and-youth/intellectual-

development-in-children#.XnhRcBNKh2Y

Kann, L., McManus, T., Harris, W., Shanklin, S. L., Flint, K. H., Hawkins, J., … Zaza, S. (2017,

June 21). Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance - United States, 2015. Retrieved March 18,

2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/ss/ss6506a1.htm

PEPSI SCREENING 13

Morelli, A. O. (n.d.). Adolescent Physical Development. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from

https://www.gracepointwellness.org/1310-child-development-theory-adolescence-12-

24/article/41153-adolescent-physical-development

Morelli, A. O. (n.d.). Middle to Late Adolescence (ages 15 to 22): The Age of ... Retrieved

March 20, 2020, from https://www.gracepointwellness.org/1310-child-development-

theory-adolescence-12-24/article/41181-middle-to-late-adolescence-ages-15-to-22-the-

age-of-romance

Piaget, J. (1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Retrieved March 20,

2020, from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1972-20739-001

Services for Teens in Late Adolescence: 3-C Family Services. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2020,

from https://www.3cfamilyservices.com/life-stages/teens/late-adolescence/

Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching (14th ed.). Australia:

Cengage Learning.

Teipel, K. (n.d.). Late Adolescence/Young Adulthood (Ages 18 –24 years) for a ... Retrieved

March 19, 2020, from

http://www.amchp.org/programsandtopics/AdolescentHealth/projects/Documents/SAHR

C AYADevelopment LateAdolescentYoungAdulthood.pdf