Advanced Certificate in Child Development VRE002

COURSE STRUCTURE

Choose four (4) modules from the list below:

Module 1 Play Leadership VRE101

1. Understanding Play
   To explain the purpose of play in the cognitive, physical and social development of a child.
2. Leadership Skills
   To determine the skills required to carry out a play leadership role in different situations.
3. Planning Play Programs
   To develop a plan for a supervised children’s play program.
4. Child Development through Play
   To develop a basic understanding of the impact of play upon the psychological development of a child.
5. Play Safety
   To determine appropriate measures to take to protect a child’s safety when at play, while minimising any interference which might diminish the quality of the play experience.
6. Physical Play
   To develop an understanding of options for physical play activities, including games and sports, in a supervised play program.
7. Social Play
   To develop an understanding of options for social play activities, in a supervised play program.
8. Adventure Play
   To develop a basic ability to plan, establish and manage a supervised adventure playground.
9. Play Apparatus
   To develop an ability to evaluate a range of different play apparatus, including playground structures, toys, sports equipment, commenting on quality, safety features, appropriate applications and cost benefit.
10. Activities
    To broaden your scope of opportunities that can be offered for children to play, appropriate to a wide range of different situations.
11. Special Project

Module 2 Introduction To Psychology BPS101

1. The Nature & Scope of Psychology
2. Neurological Basis of Behaviour
3. Environmental Effects on Behaviour
4. Consciousness And Perception
5. Personality
6. Psychological Development
7. Needs, Drives And Motivation

Module 3 Child Psychology BPS104

1. Introduction to Child Psychology
   • Levels of development
   • Nature or nurture
   • Isolating hereditary characteristics
   • Cause versus correlation
   • Continuity versus discontinuity
   • Cross sectional and longitudinal studies
   • Reliability of verbal reports
2. The Newborn Infant
   • The Interactionist Approach
   • Range of Reaction
   • Niche Picking
   • Temperament
   • Stimulus seeking
   • Emotional disturbances during pregnancy
3. States & Senses of the Infant
   • Sensory Discrimination
   • Infant States (sleep, Inactivity, Waking, Crying etc)
   • Why are Psychologists so concerned with defining and describing these infant states?
   • Habituation
   • Crying, Soothing a Distressed Baby
   • Sound Discrimination
   • Smell and Taste Discrimination
   • Visual Discrimination
   • Depth Perception
   • Oral Sensitivity
4. Learning
   • Habituation
   • Vicarious Learning
   • Classical Conditioning
   • Operant Conditioning
   • Reinforcement
   • The Importance of Learning Control, etc
5. Emotions and Socialisation
   • Producing and Recognising Emotional Expression
   • Smiling
   • Biological Explanation
   • Perceptual Recognition Explanation
   • The Mother-Child Attachment
   • Fraudian Approach
   • Bowlby’s Approach
   • Social Learning Approach
   • Harlows Approach
   • The Role of Cognition in Attachment Formation
   • Maternal Attachment
   • Fear
   • Social Learning
   • Perceptual Recognition
   • Woman’s Duel Role as Mothers and Workers
   • Is Day Care a Developmental Hazard to Children
6. Cognitive Development
   • Developing the ability to reason.
7. Language Development
   • Is language learned, or are we genetically programmed with it
   • The Social Learning Approach
   • The Hypothesis testing Approach
   • Under extending
8. Intelligence
   • Measuring Intelligence
   • Cultural Bias
   • IQ
   • Testing Intelligence as a tool.
9. Socialisation – Part A
   • Social Cognation
     • Self awareness
     • Awareness of others as individuals in their own Right
     • The development of empathy
     • Taking turns
     • Having a point of view/perspective
     • Ability to see something from another persons perspective.
   • Friendships
   • Social Scripts
   • Scripts that Pretend Play
10. Morality
    • Moral development
    • Aggression & Altruism
    • Freuds Approach
    • Piagets Approach
    • Kohlbergs Approach
11. Sexuality
    • Freuds phases (oral phase, anal phase, phallic phase, latent phase, genital phase)
    • The Acquisition of Gender & Role Identity
    • Concept of psycho-social development
12. Socialisation – Part B
    • The Family Influence
    • Discipline
    • Siblings
    • Family Structures
    • School Influence
    • Peer Influence
    • Acceptance & Rejection
    • Imitation & Reinforcement.

Module 4 Children’s Writing BWR104

1. Introduction: Understanding Children, their thoughts, needs, development.
2. Overview of Children’s Writing: Categories (fiction & non fiction), understanding the market place; analyse & understand what is needed for the different categories, etc.
3. Conceptualisation: Conceiving a concept, where & how to find inspiration/influence. Developing a concept and how to plan.
4. Children’s Writing for Periodicals: Children’s pages in magazines, newspapers, etc.
5. Short Stories
6. Non-Fiction: Texts (writing to satisfy curriculum. Other (eg. nature, history, biography, hobbies).
7. Fiction: settings, characterisation, fantasy, science fiction, adventure.
8. Picture Books and Story Books
9. Editing your work: Grammar, spelling & punctuation. Improving clarity. Cleaning out clutter; expansions.
10. Project – write a short story, picture book or kids page for a (hypothetical) periodical.

Module 5 Children’s Nutrition BRE304

1. Introduction to Child Nutrition
2. Nutrition for Pre-Pregnancy
3. Nutrition in Pregnancy
4. Nutrition in Infants
5. Nutrition in Childhood
6. Nutritional Concerns
7. Healthy Eating Behaviours
8. Issues in Child Nutrition
9. Childhood Obesity
10. Diet Plans

Module 6 Playground Design BHT216

1. Overview of Parks & Playgrounds
2. Playground Philosophy
3. Preparing a Concept Plan
4. Materials
5. Park & Playground Structures and Materials
6. Local and Neighbourhood Parks
7. Community Participation In Park Development
8. Special Assignment