What Will You Learn in This Course?

During the course, you will learn more about -

• The theories of human development as proposed by some of the great psychology thinkers like Freud, Piaget and Erikson. 
• How we evolve from birth to old age and the conflicts and processes which can affect our health and wellbeing.
• Key psychological and emotional challenges at different life stages.

• Cognitive development, social development, adolescence, adulthood, childhood, late adulthood and the changes and challenges that occur throughout our lifetimes.
• Friendship, sexuality, parenthood, retirement and more.

This course is suitable for professional/career development, CPD or personal interest.

COURSE CONTENT

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
2. Early childhood
3. Middle childhood
4. Challenges of middle childhood
5. Adolescence
6. Challenges of adolescence
7. Adulthood
8. Challenges of adulthood
9. Late adulthood
10. Challenges of late adulthood

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.

WHAT YOU WILL DO ON THE COURSE - 

• Learn key theories and concepts in the study of developmental psychology.
• List major ethical concerns when studying development, and one step a researcher can take to reduce each.
• Identify cognitive and social aspects of a small child’s development and some key inherent and external influences.
• Describe the phases of language acquisition in infants, and what can adversely affect it.
• Describe major cognitive, moral and social developments in middle childhood and how they influence behaviour
• Compare short term memory with long term memory in middle childhood and discuss how this affects the child’s ability to learn.
• Identify common psychological challenges faced by children from ages 6 to puberty.
• Reflect on your own success and failure experiences, and your own sense of competence in middle childhood. Consider how they affected your perceptions of yourself as you matured.
• Identify areas of change that will affect adolescent behaviour and thinking.
• Explain post formal thought and consider how it can contribute to an adolescent’s ability or willingness to make moral choices.
• Identify challenges common to adolescence, and ways to deal with them.
• Explain individuation. Discuss its importance, and how it can both challenge and complement group identity.
• Identify changes that can occur in early and middle adulthood and influence behaviour.
• Explain K. Warner Schaie’s ‘stages of adult thinking’ and explain why Schaie’s model might be more relevant to understanding adult cognition than Piaget’s cognitive model.
• Identify some key challenges faced in adulthood and ways of coping with them.
• List some changes that are typically associated with ‘midlife crisis’. Discuss both negative and positive aspects of ‘midlife crisis’.
• Identify effects of physiological changes and life experience on the aged person’s cognitive and psychosocial experiences.
• Explain how ‘cognitive plasticity’ can affect an older person’s ability to learn despite brain cell loss.
• Research depression and suicide among the elderly.
• Research ways that an older person can be made to feel more independent and autonomous.
• Consider in your response what family members can do to respect the older person’s need for autonomy.

During the course, you will learn more about how our Development is Affected by What We Learn

Learning is a natural part of life; and it starts at the beginning of one's life. 
Learning is affected by both our environment and our genetics. Learning affects psychological development; and the way we develop psychologically then, in turn, affects how and what we learn.

Everyone starts life by learning to eat, crawl, walk, run, sit, talk, play and lots of other things; before ever being confronted by what we think of as “education” or “teachers”. 

Research proved long ago that more of a child’s learning is a result of play, than a result of any sort of “formal” teaching. 

We acquire essential survival skills in the early years of life, through this informal learning that happens before we go to school. Without that early learning we might not know how to eat, navigate the world or communicate with others. We cannot live as independent people if we do not learn and know how to deal with the world.

While everyone who learns these basic skills does progress past early childhood; we don’t all learn them in the same way or as well as each other.

“Much depends on the encouragement and positive results of early years as motivators for children trying or continuing to learn. A recent TV program highlighted how the use of a dog in the classroom as a mascot gave children in a school unconditional love and rewarded them with positive results when they tried to teach it tricks. Then end result was they became inspired to learn more themselves, became more confident and even were inspired to read books on dog training and dog behaviour.”

Consider one child who is taught to eat at the table, with a knife and fork, at the same time each day, accepting a healthy and varied diet, and chewing their food many times before swallowing. Compare this with a second child who learns to eat whatever they want, wherever they want and whenever they want.

The first child may be learning things subtly, beyond what the second child learns. The first child is learning:

• to use their hands with greater skill, (because they are using a knife and fork)
• to manage their time (because they need to fit into a schedule)
• to look after the nutrition of their body
• to have a broader understanding of dietary possibilities, which in turn support a broader perspective on the wider world

What Are the Advantages of Studying Psychology with ACS Distance Education?

• You can start at any time to suit you.
• The courses are self-paced.
• You can study when and where suits you. They are flexible to fit in around you and your lifestyle.
• It is not just a course, it is a package of learning that includes – course notes, tutor feedback, self-assessment tests, research tasks and assignments.
• Our tutors are all experts in their field, with years of experience in psychology and counselling.
• They are also keen and enthusiastic about their subject and enjoy working with students to improve their knowledge and skills.
• Courses are also updated regularly to meet the demands of the changing needs for knowledge and to keep our courses up to date.

What Next?

This course will help you to better understand how people develop, through all ages of life. Having a heightened awareness of developmental psychology is a big advantage when dealing with people in any capacity. It helps you understand work colleagues, clients, friends and family members. It is a very valuable tool for teachers, managers, counsellors and welfare workers, amongst many other professions.

This course is useful for professional development or personal interest.

Learn more about people and the way that they change during their lifetime.

You can enrol today by clicking the “Enrol Now” button above.

Or

Click here to Contact a Psychology Tutor.

Or Request a Prospectus Here.