| CODE | PSY5800 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Child Development and Learning | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 5 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Psychology | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit attempts to develop in participants a perspective on children as holistic persons that are inherently motivated for development and learning. This unit is complementary to another concurrent unit on contexts of child development, as well as for other later units on child development and wellbeing, namely children’s voices, children’s health, speech and language, resilience, and digital literacy. This unit thus focuses on building an understanding of both uniformity and diversity in children's psychosocial and cognitive development. It will be framed by psychological and neuroscience theories of the healthy development of personality and self identity, including gender roles, socio-emotional and cognitive development in childhood and adolescence. Study-Unit Aims: This unit seeks to enable participants to build an evidence-based framework of childhood trajectories of psychologically healthy and unhealthy development. They will be enabled to view development as a diverse phenomenon where it is normal to be different. Participants will develop a solid understanding of the various theories of cognitive and psychosocial development during the childhood period These include: updated formulations of Bowlby's attachment theory; Freud's, Erikson's and Adler's psychosexual and psychosocial development theories; Maslow's theory of hierarchical needs; Piaget's, Vigotsky's and information processing theories of cognitive development, as well as behavioural theories of learning and more recent research on the neuroscience of the developing brain. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the different scientific methods used for studying child development; - Critically describe the various and diverse trajectories of child holistic healthy development in relation to different child characteristics and family backgrounds; - Compare and contrast Freud's psychosexual theory, Erikson's psychosocial theory and Adler's theory of the development of a healthy personality; - Compare and contrast the main principles, research evidence and criticism of Piaget's individual and Vygotsky's social constructivist cognitive developmental theories; - Compare and contrast the main principles, research evidence and criticism of behaviourist and information theories of child development and learning; - Give a critical account of the new insights arising from neuroscientific evidence on child development trajectories'; - Give a critical account of the research evidence for understanding the strengths and needs of children with developmental disabilities. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Demonstrate a perspective on child development that values diversity, embracing the principle that it is normal to be different; - Evaluate the best way to research a particular question about child development; - Demonstrate the ability to interpret an observed child behaviour from different theoretical perspectives; - Evaluate at least one current family or educational provision in Malta in relation to the various principles and theories of child cognitive and psychosocial development; - Demonstrate the ability to identify the strengths and needs of a child with any characteristic, condition or home background that may hinder the child's health development and learning. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main texts: - Shute, RH., & Slee, PT. (2015). Child Development Theories and Critical Perspectives (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. - McCormick, C. M., Kuo, S. I-C., & Masten, A. S. (2011). Developmental tasks across the life span. In K. L. Fingerman, C. A. Berg, J. Smith, & T. C. Antonucci (Eds.), Handbook of life-span development (p. 117–139). Springer Publishing Company. Supplementary texts: - Barrouillet, P. (2018). Theories of cognitive development: From Piaget to today. Developmental Review, 38, 1–12. - Bohlin, G., & Hagekull, B. (2009). Development and Aging Socio-emotional development: From infancy to young adulthood. Development and Aging Socio-emotional development: From infancy to young adulthood. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 50, 592–601. - Eisenberg, M., Gower, A., Rider, G., McMorris, B., Coleman, E. (2019) At the intersection of sexual orientation and gender identity: variations in emotional distress and bullying experience in a large population-based sample of U.S. adolescents, Journal of LGBT Youth, 16:3, 235-254, DOI: 10.1080/19361653.2019.1567435 - Green, C., Kalvaitis, D., & Worster, A. (2016) Recontextualizing psychosocial development in young children: a model of environmental identity development. Environmental Education Research, 22(7), 1025-1048, DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2015.1072136 - Groha, A., Fearon, R., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M., Van Jzendoornc, M., Steeled, R., & Roisman,G. (2014). The significance of attachment security for children’s social competence with peers: a meta-analytic study. Attachment & Human Development, 16(2), 103–136, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2014.883636 - Hatano, K., Sugimura, K. Crocetti, E., Meeus, W. (2020). Diverse-and-Dynamic Pathways in Educational and Interpersonal Identity Formation during Adolescence: Longitudinal Links With Psychosocial Functioning. Child Development, 91(4),1203–1218. - Poole, K., Santesso, D., Van Lieshout, R., & Schmidt, L. (2017). Trajectories of frontal brain activity and socio-emotional development in children. Developmental Psychobiology, 60, 353–363. - Wertlieb, D. (2019). Nurturing care framework for inclusive early childhood development: opportunities and challenges. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 2019, 61, 1275–1280. - Zhou, W., Ouyang, F., Nergui. O., Bangura J., Acheampong, K., Massey, I., and Xiao, S. (2020). Child and Adolescent Mental Health Policy in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Challenges and Lessons for Policy Development and Implementation. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 150. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00150 - Blakemore, S-J. (2018). Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain. London: Doubleday. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Paul A. Bartolo (Co-ord.) Colin Calleja Maris Catania Madeline Duca |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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