The Healthy Temple

A noted lack of symptoms of puberty is the primary indicator that a child may be experiencing delayed puberty. The following are the most common symptoms of delayed puberty. However, each child may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
• girls:
- lack of breast development by age 13
- more than five years between breast growth and menstrual period
- lack of pubic hair by age 14
- failure to menstruate by age 16
• boys:
- lack of testicular enlargement by age 14
- lack of pubic hair by age 15
- more than five years to complete genital enlargement
Delayed puberty may result from constitutional , which often occurs in adolescents with a family history of delayed growth. Pre-pubertal growth velocity is normal, but skeletal maturation and adolescent growth spurt are delayed; sexual maturation is delayed but normal. Other causes include Turner’s syndrome in girls, Klinefelter’s syndrome in boys, CNS disorders (pituitary tumors that reduce gonadotropin secretion), certain chronic disorders (diabetes mellitus, renal disorders, cystic fibrosis), and excess physical activity, especially in girls. During embryonic development nerves grow from the nasal cavity to the olfactory bulbs at the base of the cerebral hemispheres. From there the olfactory tracts project to the hypothalamus and other brain areas, a process that is complete at about 25 days gestation.
Fortunately puberty problems due to central nervous system abnormalities are relatively rare, affecting about 1 in 40,000 females and 1 in 10,000 males, but they can be traumatic, says Dr. Lawrence C. Layman, an expert on delayed puberty who follows about 350 of these patients.

So, puberty is basically all these chemical signals moving around inside the body, turning a teenager into an adult. The time frame varies from person to person, but eventually everyone turns into an adult, at least physically! Mentally it might take more time and practice.