A detailed course giving insight into the core areas of applied developmental psychology!
Study child psychology, developmental psychology, careers counselling, relationship counselling and much more.
AND you can study by distance learning, so learn in the comfort of your own home with support from our excellent tutors.
For anyone interested in children and their psychology.
This course looks at how developmental and child psychology theories can be applied and used.
There are six 100 modules in the course consisting of -
- Introduction to Psychology
- Child Psychology
- Educational Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Careers Counselling
- Relationship and Communications Counselling
Duration: 600 hours
The Brain Never Stops Changing!
Children need to be challenged and stimulated to develop. Not all children develop at the same rate.
Before a baby is born, their brain structure will grow. As the foetus grows and develops, their neurons will travel to the eventual location in the brain. Neurons compete for limited space and some will not find a place where they can live and thrive. If this happens, they are pruned back and destroyed. No one knows why some neurons find an appropriate home and others don’t, but as the neuron finds it home, it continues to grow and develop. If the pruning process is not completed or doesn’t happen, it can lead to behavioural and learning disorders.
After birth, the sensory systems and motor system of the brain are ready. The neonate (newborn) has motor control to feed and move away from painful or unpleasant stimuli. Visual and auditory systems are there at birth, but continue to develop as the child reacts to their environment.
In healthy children, these systems continue into the preschool years. Their visual and auditory skills continue to improve. All children will receive different inputs to their brain, so because of this, every brain is unique.
The age a child is ready to learn a specific skill becomes hard-wired in the brain, but learning itself can also be environmentally determined. Say a child is ready to read when their auditory system is ready to understand one sound from another. But if the child does not receive reading instruction then, the learning to read can be delayed. Or if the child is not ready for reading instruction, this can also delay their ability to learn to read. This is the reason it is important to give children age-appropriate tasks.
As a child grows, the fibres between the neurons and white matter (myelin) of the brain continue to grow. These neural networks are essential for the child to transmit information through the brain. As the brain matures, these connections become more interconnected and are important in helping the child to form memories and connect new learning to previous learning.
As the networks form, the child also learns socially. Mostly this is learning by rote at first, but then it becomes more specialised and developed.
As children reach 10, 11 and 12, the role of rote learning is lessened and children begin to increase the connections in their brain. Until in adolescence, children begin to think inferentially. This does not always happen though if the child is immature or has learning or attentional problems.