Advanced Certificate in Child Development VRE002

Course Structure: Advanced Certificate in Child Development VRE002
Choose four (4) modules from the list below:

• Play Leadership VRE101
  
• Introduction To Psychology BPS101
  
• Child Psychology BPS104
  
• Childrens Writing BWR104
  
• Childrens Nutrition BRE304
  
• Playground Design BHT216
  

What you will be doing during this Course

WHAT AFFECTS A CHILD'S DEVELOPMENT?
Child development is complex; affected by a range of competing factors from genetic make up, to the environmental conditions they are exposed to, the experiences they are confronted with and perhaps even to some extent "luck". Arguably, a child who is simply unlucky to lose a parent may (all other factors being equal), develop very differently to another who doesn't. Anyone who works with children will be interested in understanding causes of certain patterns of behaviour; for instance, in how the child’s environment and relationships (eg. home, school and neighbourhood) affect the child’s development. This involves an attempt to establish causes. They are also interested in "outcomes" of certain childhood experiences; for example, how does the experience of living in a poverty stricken environment affect the later behaviour of the child?

It is difficult to identify "one" solitary cause for any behaviour. Usually behaviour is far more complex, having been influenced by a mixture of prior experiences.

Nature or Nurture?
The nature-nurture debate is classic conundrum, involveing how we explain the causes (ie. determinants) of particular characteristics in people.

The nature position argues that many characteristics are genetically or biologically determined - that is, they are hereditary. Hereditary refers to the transmission of genes from parent to offspring which determine the course of development in a growing embryo.

The nurture position, on the other hand, argues that most characteristics are determined by environmental influences. These influences may be familial, educational or social. Behaviourist and social learning theorists often claim that the infants consciousness is like a blank slate after birth -that all characteristics are the product of the environmental influences the infant experiences.

Consider the following question in the context of the nature-nurture debate:
Why does Mark drink so much alcohol?

It may be because he inherited his father’s genetic predisposition towards alcoholism. Alternatively, it may be because he has learnt the habit from being constantly exposed to his fathers drinking behaviour.

Common sense tells us that often genetic and environmental influences interact to produce a specific characteristic. Most psychologists thus agree that both the nature and nurture approaches should be used in trying to locate the determinants of a child’s characteristics.

Isolating hereditary characteristics
An interesting research method which child psychologists often use is to compare monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins. This provides a way of isolating genetic influence. The rationale is as follows:

• Since monozygotic (identical) twins are born from the same zygote (an ovum that has been fertilised by a sperm cell), they will have an identical genetic make up.
• Dizygotic twins are born from two different zygotes, thus their genetic make-up differs as much as any two siblings genetic make-up would.

Example: A study to see if intelligence is genetically determined.

The researcher will want to see if the intellectual capacity of identical twins is more similar, or more closely correlated than that of dizygotic twins. If it is (and this has actually been discovered to be correct) then the evidence indicates that intelligence is largely genetically determined. 

Cause versus correlation
Though the ideal aim of the child psychologist may be to identify the causes of a specific behaviour or characteristic, this is practically impossible to do.

In a world with such a multitude of influences -things happen all of the time - it is not possible to attribute one cause to one characteristic.

Example: It has been discovered that children brought up in an impoverished environment often have a low level of cognitive ability.

• Firstly, we cannot say that the former causes the latter, because there are always exceptions to the rule (ie. There are always disadvantaged children who succeed in intellectual pursuits).
• Secondly, we cannot isolate what particular influence in the environment has caused cognitive disadvantages -is it inadequate education, poor nutrition, stress in the home, lack of play things (eg. toys), or something else? It could be any one (or several) of these.

Instead of using the term "cause", child psychologists use the term correlation.

In the above case they say that there is a high correlation between impoverished environment and low cognitive ability in children. The term correlation means that there is a strong association, which, in some contexts, implies that the one variable (environment) has a strong influence on the other variable (cognition).

Rather than wasting their time trying to find "causes", researchers focus on the degree of association or influence expressed in the term correlation.

Continuity versus discontinuity
Theorists differ as to how they regard the way in which people change as they get older. Some regard human development as a continuous, sequential process; they view development as a process of continuous building upon previous knowledge, with no abrupt changes occurring. Others however view development as a series of distinct stages, each stage having its own peculiar characteristics, with fairly abrupt changes occurring as a person moves from one stage to the next.

According to the "stage theorists", each stage of development has a dominant theme; each stage is qualitatively different from the previous stage; and stages occur in a fixed universal sequence.

Note that each module in this Advanced Certificate is a certificate in its own right, and may be studied separately.