For coursework assessments only: students with a Reasonable Adjustment Plan (RAP) or Carer Support Plan should check your plan to see if an extension to this submission date has been agreed.
For this assignment, you need to answer one of the essay questions below. In your essay you will need to display a critical understanding of key theories and research evidence in developmental psychology. Finally, you will also need to show in your recommendations evidence of applying developmental psychology into practice (this may include policy).
You should choose ONE of the following essays:
1. Experience is important for infant face processing skills. Critically discuss the evidence for and against this statement and make a strong conclusion for the role of experience in infant face processing skills based on your arguments.
Your answer should focus on infants aged 0-24 months.
You should build an argument by drawing on peer reviewed journal articles that support the idea that experience is important for infant face processing and that support the idea that infant face processing skills are innate.
A good critical discussion and evaluation of peer reviewed journal articles will discuss the strengths and limitations of each piece of research, explain the impact these strengths and limitations might have on the findings, support your argument with references to the wider literature and discuss how any limitations might be overcome in future work.
Critically discuss and evaluate the evidence for the age of onset (age of development) of Theory of Mind (ToM).
For over 40 years, researchers have focused on the important developmental transitions that children experience when they start to solve ToM problems that require reasoning about complex mental states such as a person’s beliefs. Over the past decade researchers have started to explore ToM abilities in children outside of the typically accepted age span, showing early ToM abilities in ever younger children and infants. In this essay, you will critically discuss both historical and more contemporary research which tests implicit and explicit ToM. For this assessment you will aim to discuss the strengths and limitations of the peer reviewed research (focus on methodologies for testing ToM) which provides data on the age children begin to develop ToM. Support your arguments with references of relevant literature and discuss how limitations might be overcome in future research.
Preparing for your essay
Following on from the further resource lists made available to you in your lectures, and adopting tips from the e-research skills session, undertake independent literature searches (e.g., using electronic databases) to identify relevant research evidence to support the developmental theories and methods you will discuss in your essay.
What to include in your essay
Your essay should include the following structure: title (as set above), main body and conclusions with recommendations, and references. If necessary or helpful, feel free to include a diagram, figure or table to illustrate a point. More detail is offered below:
