INTRODUCTION 1.1 ADOLESCENCE The period of development and adjustment during the intermediate period between childhood and adulthood is termed as adolescence. This period develops from childhood and comes together into adulthood. The setting up of childhood goes away during this period and various processes of changes starts to take place. Indeed, it is a period of revolutionary change and also it is markedly a period of growing up, during which the child develops into a man or woman. It has a broader meaning as of today as compared to those meanings of the term than it had in earlier years. As an alternative to limiting the adolescence period to the time when the individual grows to maturity sexually, it is now extended until the individual is expected to be intellectually, emotionally and socially mature. 1. The term Adolescence comes from the word adolescere which means to grow or to grow to maturity if we referred to the definitions based on an Etymological way. 2. Adolescence is the stage when puberty dawns if we referred to the definitions from the biological point of view. And if the same term is looked chronologically this is a span of life ranging from 12 to 18 years having individual and cultural differences. 3. The period of adolescence is an intermediate period from dependence on parents to self-sufficient adulthood when we happen to see sociologically. 4. This period varies from community to community if we see culturally. In some communities, marriage among boys and girls takes place quite early (as early as 13 or 16 years of age),
