Diploma in Child Psychology

75% discount on all courses using the code SA75

Overview

Child psychology is the study of the mental, social and emotional development of children from birth through to adolescence. It examines changes in motor skills, cognitive development, language acquisition, and identity formation.

This in-depth Child Psychology course will provide you with a fundamental knowledge of the development of children and will give you an integral insight into why children behave the way they do.

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 the 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, standardized instructions and procedures, methods of sampling, a 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 generalization; 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

• The definition in psychological terms; investigation of moral behavior, moral feelings, and moral judgment.

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; The 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: Behaviour Modification

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

Accreditation

This course has been accredited by Online Academies. On successful completion of this course, you will be able to download or print off a PDF of your Online Academies Diploma (please note: you will also be given the opportunity to have a hard copy of the certificate printed off and posted out to you for a small additional charge). If you would like to view a sample of the diploma, please click here

Assessment

At the conclusion of each module, there is a multiple choice question assessment. This will help you remember the main points of the lesson and act as a check that you have retained the essential knowledge and understanding of that particular section. The results can be seen instantaneously and you can correct wrong answers. When the result is satisfactory you can progress to the next module.

Course outcome

Once you have successfully completed all the modules for your course you will be awarded: A Diploma issued by Online Academies

75% discount on all courses using the code SA75

Are You Looking to Enrol on a Course to...

• Enhance Your Career
• Improve Some Aspect of Your Home Life
• Develop a New Interest

Then you will enjoy and greatly benefit from this Fast Track method of study that is available across a comprehensive selection of courses.

Fast Track Courses

These online courses are beautifully presented in a modular style that builds your knowledge and understanding in the time proven step-by-step manner. This makes learning a pleasure and you do not need any previous educational qualifications.

Instead of having to puzzle over the composition of a written assignment at the end of each module, there are a series of multiple choice questions. These ensure that you have absorbed the material and they also act as a sure method of remembering the key points. Not only that your study time is reduced and so are the fees.

Such a method of presentation will enable you to study and successfully complete your course wherever and whenever you want either on a laptop or tablet computer.

These Fast Track courses are either independently accredited under the ABC Awards QLS licence or certified by Online Academies.

Multiple Choice Method of Assessing Modules

Your individual modules are assessed by you completing a series of multiple choice questions. This method allows you to proceed steadily through the course whilst committing to memory the key points of each module.

Certified Courses

You will be awarded an Online Academies Diploma when you have successfully completed all the modules’ multiple choice question assessments. This certifies that you have completed the course, having understood the material within it.

Endorsed Courses

If you have chosen to study an accredited course there will be an online questionnaire to take after the final multiple choice questions have been successfully completed. This grants independent accreditation under the ABC Awards Quality Licence Scheme

Tutor Support

When you enrol you can be confident of success because there will be an experienced, qualified and friendly tutor on hand to answer your queries. Contact will be by email.

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