A level: AS : Module 4 - Child Development and Options

CHILD DEVELOPMENT
13.1 Social Development 13.1.1 Attachment and separation The role of caregiver – infant interactions in the development of attachment, including reference to human and animal studies. Function of attachment. Secure and insecure attachments. Measuring attachment. Possible short-term and long-term consequences of privation and deprivation. The work of Bowlby, Rutter, Schaffer and Ainsworth in the above.

13.1.2 Self and others Aspects of the self: existential, categorical and self-awareness. Self-esteem and consequences of high and low levels in children. The development of friendship. Age-related change in friendship. Sex differences. Popularity and rejection: causes and consequences.

13.2 Cognitive Development 13.2.1 Piaget’s theory of cognitive development Schemas: adaptation, assimilation and accommodation. Piaget’s stages of intellectual development. Characteristics of these stages, including, for example, object permanence, conservation, egocentrism. Piaget’s research, including the three mountains experiment and conservation experiments.

13.2.2 Alternatives to Piaget The alternative approaches to children’s learning of Vygotsky and Bruner.

Vygotsky and cognitive development within a social and cultural context. Vygotsky’s concept of zone of proximal development. Bruner’s concept of scaffolding. Modes of representation: enactive, iconic and symbolic. Modes of representation and increased capacity to deal with abstraction. Piaget and the alternative approaches to children’s learning of Vygotsky and Bruner.

13.3 Moral Development 13.3.1 Piaget and Kohlberg Piaget’s stages of moral development: premoral judgement, moral realism and moral relativism (subjectivity). Kohlberg’s preconventional, conventional and post-conventional levels and types of moral reasoning in each level. Kohlberg’s use of moral dilemmas (Heinz dilemma) to provide evidence for these levels; shortcomings of these methods of investigation.

13.3.2 Alternatives and evaluation Eisenberg model of levels of prosocial reasoning: including hedonistic, needs, approval, self-reflective and internalised orientations. Gilligan’s ethics of care: differences between boys and girls. Gilligan’s three levels of moral development. Psychoanalytic explanations of moral development. The role of the super-ego.

13.4 Exceptional Development

13.4.1 Autism and learning difficulties

Autism: definition and symptoms. Possible causes of autism, including genetic and environmental factors. Treatment approaches including behaviour techniques and family therapy.

Learning difficulties: range of cognitive impairments and recognition, for example, dyslexia. Causes and treatments.

13.4.2 Gifted children Definitions of giftedness including musical, mathematical and intelligence and the testing of these abilities. Gifted children and social and emotional development. Gifted children and information processing skills: Sternberg’s research. Giftedness as a special need in education and the implications for the family.