Child Psychology NCFE 4

This in-depth course in Child Psychology will provide you with an amazing insight into the development of children and will help you understand the things and situations that can affect how a child behaves.

Whether you are a parent or work within the childcare profession this course will provide you with the skills and knowledge to help a child to reach his or her maximum potential. The course has been designed for some one without any prior knowledge of the subject and will allow the student to study the course at their own pace in their own home.

Entry requirements: 

There are no previous skills or qualifications required to register for this study programme.

Support:

All students will be assigned a personal tutor with whom they may correspond with via telephone or email. Details will be in your course study pack.

Duration:

All students have one year to complete this course from date of registration. Average study of 200 hours.

Provided materials:

• NCFE approved course pack
• Unlimited support Monday to Friday
• NCFE registration
• Certification

Course syllabus:

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: Behaviour Modification

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

Assessment method:

This course is completed using continual assessment, allowing your tutor to closely monitor your progress every step of the way. Therefore no examination is required.

Examination:

No examination is necessary

Qualification:

On completion of your course, you will receive two qualifications:

Qualification 1: 

Advanced Child Psychology Diploma

Diploma entitling you to use the letters SAC Dip after your name.

Qualification 2: 

NCFE Level 4 Advanced Child Psychology Award

This Course leads to an NCFE Level 4 Award Certificate for successful learners. That means that it is independently accredited at a level of learning equivalent to level 4 on the National Qualifications Framework (NFQ) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (in which case GCSE's are at levels 1 and 2 and A Levels are at level 3).

The Award has been designed by a learning provider to meet specific learners' or employers' requirements and as such is not listed as a qualification on NQF. While the duration, content or assessment may vary from similar national qualifications, in accrediting the programme at level 4. NCFE attests that its learning outcomes are at an equivalent level to a level 4 national qualification. see www.ncfe.org.uk

Professional Membership

On completion of this course students can apply for membership to the Society for Holistic Therapists and Coaches (SHTC), a professional body who are dedicated to recognised standards of qualification and practice - students will also be able to use the initials 'SHTC' after their names.

For more information please visit the SHTC website at www.societytherapistscoaches.com