Child Psychology course contents

Diploma in Child Psychology - Course Contents

1. What exactly is child psychology?

What it is, and what it isn't. The big names in child psychology, from Freud to Piaget. A quick look at the major theories (including some discredited ones).

2. Ah, babies!

How babies develop. Milestones in a baby's life. Infants' needs. Infant states, such as sleeping and inactivity. Crying. How to soothe a distressed baby. How infants see depth. Their use of the mouth. The social smile. The terrible twos.

3. How children form bonds, and why that's important

Imprinting. Surrogate mothers. What happens when there's no attachment? Separation and loss. The effect of praise and criticism. Children in institutions. Bed wetting.

4. How can we test our theories of child psychology? Experiments you can try yourself.

How experiments work. How to design an investigation. What is a hypothesis, and why is it important? How do we test a hypothesis? All about variables, and how to control them. Making sure your samples are right.

5. How we learn to see

How we learn to judge depth and height. How the eye and brain work. Famous experiments.

6. How children learn to talk and communicate

The spoken word, voice and gestures. How we compare with apes.

7. Are some children really smarter than others? And if so, in what way?

How do we define intelligence? How you can test a child's intelligence. Problems with IQ testing. Is it nature or nurture? Tests on twins separated at birth. Scandals and controversies associated with IQ. Cultural bias.

8. How we do research in child psychology

The main types of research. How to collect data. How reliable is the data? How to present your data: tables and graphs. How to interpret your findings. What conclusions can you draw?

9. How do we know what children think, and how they reason?

How children perceive the world. Experiments to discover what children think.

10. How children learn

Are children conditioned by their upbringing? And from whom do we learn - our friends, parents or school? How can we help them attain their goals.

11. Children' personalities

Are there specific types of personality? We examine some theories.

12. Are children moral or immoral?

How we define morality. Do children attain a moral sense? How you can tell? How we test moral behaviour and judgement.

13. Sugar and spice. Are boys and girls really different? And if so, is that innate? Or do we make them so?

Is it biology, social environment or the culture? How to help free a child from stereotyping.

14. Why do children get aggressive?

Is it nature? What's the psychology behind aggression? Do children learn aggression? TV and video violence. Do children imitate others? Bullying. Are girls less aggressive? How do we reduce aggression?

15. More on doing research in child psychology

How to do surveys. Observing children in research.

16. Boys and girls come out to play

Why play is important. What do they learn from playing? Play in nursery school. Play therapy.

17. The family

Who plays what role in the family? How adult behaviour affects children. Parenting styles. Working mothers - does it have an effect? Absent fathers. How do sisters and brothers affect the child?

18. Going to school

What happens to the child at school? How they learn at school. Different types of learning - what kind of learning suits different children? The stages of a child's learning. Peer groups. How children learn (and sometime fail) to socialise, and how to help them. School phobia.

19. The writing's on the wall: children's behaviour, good and bad.

Challenging, problematic and anti-social behaviour. Why it happens. How children learn. Why children push boundaries, and how adults can deal with that. How we can affect children's behaviour. Educational psychology. Diagnosing problems. Dealing with gifted children. Supporting children with special needs. Sexual abuse.

20. What's next? Working in child psychology

How to get work in child psychology. Qualifications and routes. Employment in schools, hospitals, general practitioners. Setting up in private practice.