Intellectual and psychosocial functioning develop along complex learning pathways. Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich measured these two classes of abilities with narrow, biased assessments that captured only a segment of each pathway and created misleading age patterns based on ceiling and floor effects. It is a simple matter to…

The authors respond to both the general and specific concerns raised in Fischer, Stein, and Heikkinen's commentary on their article (Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, & Banich), in which they drew on studies of adolescent development to justify the American Psychological Association's positions in two Supreme Court cases involving the…