CHILD PSYCHOLOGY BPS104
ACS Student feedback:
"It's very interesting. I am always fascinated by childrens'
behaviour. It helps in my work and with my own children to have a clear
understanding of their nature/nurture. I made the right choice (when I
chose this) course. The credit goes to ACS." Judy Augustine, Child Care worker, Child Psychology course, Australia.
* A course for parents, teachers, counsellors, play leaders or anyone who interacts with children
* Learn to understand, hence communicate better with children
* Know more about child development
With this course you can learn how children develop psychologically as they grow, and what factors (such as learning, parenting styles, reinforcement, and genetic makeup) influence their behaviour and thinking. Anyone who lives or works with children will gain valuable insights into child behaviour. Students of counselling or psychology will be better prepared to understand childhood influences on later adult behaviour.
Lesson Structure
There are 12 lessons in this course:
1. Introduction to Child Psychology
* Levels of development, nature or nurture, isolating hereditary characteristics, cause versus correlation, continuity versus discontinuity, cross sectional and longitudinal studies, reliability of verbal reports
2. The Newborn Infant
* The Interactionist Approach, Range of Reaction, Niche Picking, Temperament Stimulus seeking, Emotional Disturbances During Pregnancy
3. States and Senses of the Infant
* Sensory Discrimination, Infant States (sleep, Inactivity, Waking, Crying etc), Why are Psychologists so concerned with defining and describing these infant states?, Habituation, Crying, Soothing a Distressed Baby, Sound Discrimination, Smell and Taste Discrimination, Visual Discrimination, Depth Perception, Oral Sensitivity
4. Learning
* Habituation, Vicarious Learning, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Reinforcement, The Importance of Learning Control, etc
5. Emotions and Socialisation
* Producing and Recognising Emotional Expression, Smiling, Biological Explanation, Perceptual Recognition Explanation, The Mother-Child Attachment, Freudian Approach Bowlby's Approach, Social Learning Approach, Harlows Approach, The Role of Cognition in Attachment Formation, Maternal Attachment, Fear, Social Learning, Perceptual Recognition, Womens' Dual Role as Mothers and Workers, day care.
6. Cognitive Development
* Developing the ability to reason.
7. Language Development
* Is language learned, or are we genetically programmed with it, The Social Learning Approach, The Hypothesis testing Approach, Under extending
8. Intelligence
* Measuring Intelligence, Cultural Bias, IQ, Testing Intelligence as a tool.
9. Socialisation: Part A
* Social Cognation -self awareness, -awareness of others as individuals in their own right, -the development of empathy, -taking turns, -having a point of view/perspective,-ability to see something from another persons perspective. Friendships, Social Scripts Scripts that Pretend Play
10. Morality
* Moral development, Aggression & Altruism, Freud's Approach, Piaget's Approach, Kohlberg's Approach
11. Sexuality
* Freuds phases (oral phase, anal phase, phallic phase, latent phase, genital phase) The Acquisition of Gender & Role Identity, Concept of psycho-social development
12. Socialisation: Part B
* The Family Influence, Discipline, Siblings, Family Structures, School Influence, Peer Influence, Acceptance & Rejection, Imitation & Reinforcement.
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
* Identify key concepts and issues in child psychology
* Understand theories on the psychology of the newborn infant
* Explain the different types of sense discrimination that babies develop
* Identify how children learn and influences on learning
* Discuss theories of emotion and their basis in child behaviour
* Explain how children develop cognitively
* Explain how children develop language
* Explain influences on the development of intelligence in a child
* Explain personal aspects of socialisation
* Explain factors affecting the development of morality in children
* Explain the development of sexuality within children
* Explain the impact of schooling and family structures on personality development
Some Sample Course Notes -
Temperament: Nature or Nurture
Most adults have witnessed the considerable differences in temperament between different new born babies. Some babies seem to cry or become irritable at the slightest provocation, causing many sleepless nights for parents. Others seem much more amiable, always smiling and hardly ever crying. Many mothers tell you that they have raised both types. Is this evidence of an inborn hereditary personality trait; or is it merely coincidence? If such personality tendencies are stable - that is, they continue to exist throughout the child's development - then it is often assumed that the characteristic is hereditary. Investigations have found that 70 per cent of adults with behaviour disorders were described as difficult babies by their parents. This can be interpreted in two ways: A difficult temperament is inborn and remains stable throughout life, eventually leading to behavioural problems (nature).
Difficult babies are treated differently by their parents, who perhaps elicit negative responses, which cause these to children have socially related difficulties later. The later behavioural disorders are a response to negative treatments which in turn resulted from the difficulty they caused as babies.
It has been found that mothers do not generally rear difficult babies very differently to others, but as children get older, parents do often respond more with negative behaviours such as shame, anxiety, or guilt, if these difficulties persist. The temperament of difficult babies has been found to be relatively easy to modify under appeasing parental care and conditions. Children’s temperaments moreover, were found to often change considerably during their early years. It can be concluded that while temperament may be genetically influenced, it is easily modified by environmental factors.
There has been evidence however that certain personality traits may be largely influenced by genetic factors. These are sociability, stimulus seeking and activity.
Sociability
Degrees of sociability vary amongst people, ranging from inhibited and withdrawn behaviours to outgoing and gregarious behaviour. The terms "introvert" and "extrovert" are familiar to most people, as a short and convenient way of categorising friends and acquaintances. The extrovert seeks out social interaction, is happy and jovial amongst most people; while the introvert prefers their own quiet company, and is often ill at ease in social situations.
EXAMPLES OF QUESTIONS YOU MAY CONFRONT IN THIS COURSE
Discuss what environmental and social aspects you think are required for the “ideal” environment for a developing child in your country.
Genetic and environmental factors operate together in influencing the child's personality development" Discuss the above statement.
Name and describe one personality characteristic which may be genetically determined. What evidence supports the possibility that it may be hereditary?
Genetic and environmental factors operate together in influencing the child's personality development"Discuss the above statement.
Name and describe one personality characteristic which may be genetically determined.
What evidence supports the possibility that it may be hereditary?
Name the kind of learning in which a stimulus which usually produces an unconditioned response is manipulated to produce a conditioned response. Give an example of this kind of learning.
Discuss exactly how you would use operant conditioning to encourage a child to socialise.
Use the perceptual recognition approach to explain smiling and fear in infants.
How are Freud’s, Harlow’s and Bowlby’s explanations of the formation of mother-child attachments different? Which do you think is more credible and why?
Explain reflection-impulsivity, and its significance in cognitive development.
Explain the strengths and weakness of social learning theory in explaining language acquisition.
"Intelligence is overall genetically determined". Do you agree or disagree? Why?
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