Child Psychology

Child Psychology

This Course At A Glance

• Perfect for parents, those who work with children, and aspiring child psychologists
• Learn how to support children's development and navigate challenges
• Study everything from behaviour acquisition to moral development
• Gain a base knowledge for higher level child psychology qualifications
• Learn online from the comfort of home
• Provides a certificate of achievement

About Your Course

The role of a child psychologist often involves working with a range of clients, from infants and toddlers to children and teens – though sometimes they specialise in working with a particular age group. Child psychologists help to understand, prevent, diagnose and treat developmental, cognitive, social and emotional issues.

If you are keen to know more about the mental, social, and emotional development of children from birth through to adolescence, then this is the perfect course for you. Child psychology examines changes in motor skills, cognitive development, language acquisition and identity formation.

This online course provides insight into the psychological changes that a child goes through from infancy through to their teenage years. Beyond the fundamental knowledge of child development, this child psychology course will also provide an essential overview of why children behave the way they do.

As such, this online child psychology course is an essential resource for anyone working with children, those who intend to take up a counselling career, and parents that would like to better understand their own child’s development.

How Does This Course Work?

Once enrolled, you will be given access to the course materials and our virtual learning platform, where you will find learning resources that are educational, interactive, and easy to follow. Everything you will need to complete this online child psychology course is included in the course content and price.

What’s more, you will have access to support from our friendly and knowledgeable tutors, via phone, email or through our online platform. Further advice and guidance are also available through a hub of like-minded learners who you can connect with over the virtual portal.

A great deal of flexibility is offered with distance learning, but self-motivation and discipline are essential to your achievement. However, with the support of our dedicated tutors and great student network, you will find your feet in no time.

Each lesson will be followed by a question paper that needs to be completed and returned to your tutor. You should allow at least 1 - 2 hours of study to complete each question paper.

Take The Next Step

Please note that this is a knowledge-based course, so it will not qualify you as a child psychologist.

To become a qualified child psychologist in the UK, you typically need to complete an undergraduate degree in a relevant field like psychology. This will enable you to complete the necessary postgraduate diploma or master's degree in child psychology. After completing that level of training, you would then be able to apply for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Getting Started

This online child psychology knowledge-based course is delivered by learndirect, the UK’s leading online learning provider. More than 4 million learners have achieved qualifications through our online training courses.

You will study this course online via our innovative learning platform, which you will have access to 24/7. You will, therefore, have the freedom to choose your study schedule, working whenever you wish without sacrificing your commitments.

Modules

Module One major developmental issues

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.

Entry Requirements

The course has been designed to be accessible to people without prior knowledge of the subject or qualifications. Therefore, there are no entry requirements; all you need is access to a device with an internet connection.

The approximate amount of time required to complete this online course is 200 hours.

All course fees, inclusive of all payment plans including our Premium Credit Limited option, must be settled before certification can be ordered.

*You will have access to the course for 24 months.

On successful completion of your course you will receive the learndirect Certificate of Completion of Training in Child Psychology.

Your course certificate will also state the number of CPD points/hours the course is eligible for.

View a sample of the certificate (opens in new window)

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*Please note, this is a knowledge-based course, so it will not qualify you as a child psychologist.

After successfully completing the child psychology course, you will have the skills and knowledge to confidently complete the higher-level training that is required to qualify as a child psychologist in the UK, if that’s the route you wish to take.

Should you wish to progress straight into employment on completion of this knowledge-based child psychology course, your understanding of the mental development of children will help you secure a number of entry-level roles in this space. These roles can be a great way to gain experience and knowledge in the field while you work towards your formal qualifications.

These can include:

• Teaching Assistant/Support Worker in a Special Educational Needs (SEN) School
• Play Therapist Assistant
• Befriender/Mentor for a Children's Charity
• Befriender/Volunteer
• Research Assistant
• Nursery Worker