CYP4062 - Introduction to Child Psychology

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

1 Demonstrate knowledge of key concepts, theories and issues relating to the psychology of childhood and adolescence;
2 Evaluate critically the concepts and theories which enable understanding of the psychological development of children and adolescents;
3 Analyse issues arising from concepts and theories of social, emotional and cognitive development;
4 Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different sources of psychological data relating to children and adolescents.

Content:

The nature, methods and justification for child psychology will provide a basis for studying the beginning of life, including our inheritance, development from conception to birth and the newborn’s adjustment to the world. The formation of relationships will consider the family, “attachments” and peer relationships. An introduction to emotional development will comprise an attempt to explain what emotions are, children’s conception of emotion, socialization of emotions and the development of emotional competence. An introduction to cognitive development will consist of the main perspectives on the development of thought and language. Finally, the construction of the self including adolescent development will be introduced.

Learning and Teaching Information:

This module will be taught using a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials, some of which will be student-led. Students could be expected to prepare for the sessions by reading set texts and completion of tasks set in class or via the VLE and will be expected to take part in a wide range of learning activities.
Students may be required to prepare and present brief presentations as the basis for discussion in seminar or workshops.

Lectures, seminars and tutorials
Contact hours: 40

Assessment:

001 Essay 1 x 1000 words (mid module) 25%
002 Essay 1 x 1000 words (mid module) 25%
003 Seen paper 1 x 2 hour (end of module) 50%


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