Child Psychology Course

Child psychology is the study of how a young person develops from birth up to adolescence. How he changes emotionally though that time, how his own identity is formed and how he will eventually learn to be able to speak a language. It examines how a child evolves through the processes of information processing and cognitive development.

Behaviourally it looks at how a child begins to understand social behaviours and integrate accordingly. It investigates how motor skills develop, social skills and how identity is formed.

Who is this child psychology course for?

Our Child Psychology course is a superb first step for beginners and that valuable stride forward for teachers and workers with children who wish to deepen their skill base. It is the perfect choice for anyone who suspects they might want to pursue in a career in child psychology but does not yet feel they are in complete possession of the facts of what the field entails.

This comprehensive course gives you firm foundation knowledge into how a child develops and gives insights into why a child behaves the way he does.

What does this child psychology course entail?

In total this course offers 200 hours of learning. At the end of each lesson is a written assignment for students to complete. In addition to the course material and manuals, the student also has the benefit of one to one assistance from their own designated tutor. As well as marking the work assignments, they are also available by phone or email should the student feel they require more support.

In addition to online e-books and e-manuals we also run monthly best practice groups at our centre in Manchester. These optional, free to attend sessions offer a valuable chance for the student to see theories put into practice and greatly improve learning. For those who are not able attend practice groups, a video recording of the session is emailed to students to be able to review and reassess.

This course is designed to be completed in the comfort of your own home, at your own pace. There is no time limit in which the course must be completed.

What certificate do I gain from this course?

On completion of all your written assignments you will receive a Child Psychology Diploma Certificate from the Centre of Excellence

What can I do with my certificate afterwards?

There are lots of opportunities in the child psychology field to develop skills. This course makes a great stepping stone to decide whether or not you wish to use the skills to develop your present career in some way, understand your own children better and their behaviours or even to go on to further study in the Psychology field.

Certificate of completion

Digital certificate - Included

Course Syllabus:

Module One Major Developmental Issues

Unit One: The First Year of Life

Infant reflexes; Social development during the first year of life including the social smile and onset of fear of strangers.

Unit Two: The Formation of Attachments

Imprinting; Attachment (Bowlby) including cross-cultural studies; Harlow and surrogate mothers; Relevance of animal studies in child development.

Unit Three: Consequences of Breakdowns in Attachments

Maternal deprivation; Implications of theories of attachment and maternal deprivation when placing children with surrogates.

Unit Four: The Home, Family and School

Group vs family care and studies of effects of maternal employment and father absent families; Importance of peers and siblings.

Unit Five: Basic Principles of Research Methods

Nature and purpose of research, what is an experiment, supporting and refuting hypotheses, independent and dependent variables, control of variables, standardised instructions and procedures, methods of sampling, design of investigations.

Unit Six: The Development of Visual Perception

Introduction to the nature/nurture debate on visual perception; Fantz - form perception; Gibson and Walk - depth perception; how the physiology of the human visual system helps us judge depth and distance; Bower - size constancy; animal experiments on early sensory deprivation.

Unit Seven: The Development of Language and Communication

Development of non-verbal communication in humans, gestures etc; comparisons with non-human primates; outline of language development in humans; including naturalistic observational in humans; including naturalistic observational studies and criticisms of these; Innate and reinforcement theories.

Unit Eight: Intelligence and Intelligence Testing

Definitions of intelligence; mental age and IQ; Tests of intelligence; Advantages and disadvantages of IQ testing.

Unit Nine: The Nature/Nurture Debate in the Study of Intelligence

Twins studies; stability of IQ; Are early experiences decisive for later development?

Unit Ten: Data Collection and Interpretation

Tables and histograms, correlation and scattergrams; Mean; Range; Drawing conclusions from data.

Module Two The Child as an Individual

Unit Eleven: How Children Think

Piaget's theory of cognitive development; including studies of egocentrism and criticisms of his work.

Unit Twelve: Learning Theory - How Behaviour is Acquired

Learning and conditioning - classical conditioning and operant conditioning; including explanations of extinction, discrimination and generalisation; positive and negative reinforcement; Social Learning Theory and criticisms.

Unit Thirteen: Freud's Psychodynamic Theory - An Alternative Approach

Personality structure, 5 stage theory, criticisms.

Unit Fourteen: Moral Development

Definition in psychological terms; investigation of moral behaviour, moral feelings and moral judgement.

Unit Fifteen: The Development of Gender Roles

Sex-typing; Gender identity; Biological, social and cultural theories.

Unit Sixteen: Aggression in Children

Biological basis of aggression; Psychological theory and aggression; Aggression as a learned response;

Imitation of aggression; viewing violence; Punishment for aggression; sex differences in aggression.

Unit Seventeen: Methods Used in Child Development Research

Observational, Survey, Correlational, Experimental - advantages and disadvantages.

Unit Eighteen: Play

The importance of play to learning;

Piaget's theory of play; forms of play;

Relevance of psychological theories to pre-school education;Play and learning in nursery schools; Play therapy.

Unit Nineteen: Learning in School

Programmed learning and its relationship to learning theory - advantages and disadvantages; Discovery learning and its effectiveness.

Unit Twenty: Behavior Modification

Explanation and examples; Relationship to learning theory; Points systems, Advantages and disadvantages

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