Your Ad Here

Psychology of Parenting: Basic Framework

psychpost | 10/05/2012 05:00:00 AM | 76 Comments
I am currently taking a course of The Psychology of Parenting and I will be writing several posts about some of the key topics. This field of psychology aims to understand the process of parenting by utilizing the many different aspects of psychology.

What exactly is parenting? Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood (Davies).

Can I has parents? Source

Since parenting is such a broad process which encompasses all aspects of development a framework of parenting is useful. The process of parenting can be divided into three basic categories which are further divided into multiple subcategories.

Parenting Activities: The core elements of parenting which include: survival needs of the child, setting boundaries, monitoring behavior, and fulfilling the child's potential. Taking care of the child's social and emotional needs also fall under this category.

Functional Areas: This refers to the aspects of the child's functioning which to focus on and include: physical functioning, intellectual functioning, social functioning, and maintaining mental health.

Prerequisites: What parents need in order to do their job. In order for parenting to be effective it is helpful if they have: some knowledge and understanding of the parenting process, ability to assess risk factors, motivation for parenting, resources (financial, social) opportunity and time for parenting.

In my next post on parenting I will be writing about risk factors and resilience factors, which are general aspects in the life of a child which affect the possible outcome for the child.  
Labels: , , , ,

What Is Neuropsychology?

psychpost | 9/05/2012 05:00:00 AM | 3 Comments

MRI Scanner, Widely used in Neuroscience research. source
Neuropsychology is a field of research which investigates how the structure and functions of the brain relate to psychological processes and behaviors. Neuropsychology is built upon the biological knowledge of the nervous system and uses this knowledge to better understand psychological processes.

Neuropsychology has many methods for investigating the importance of different brain regions in relation to specific psychological functions. These methods include:

·Standardized Neuropsychological Tests
·Brain Scans (Imaging): fMRI, MRI, PET, CAT
·Electrophysiological Measurements: EEG, ERP, MEG
·Lesion Studies: Actual Brain Lesions, TMS (Virtual Lesions)

Notable ground-breaking examples relating brain structures to psychological functions come from lesion studies. The most well known examples come from Broca and Wernicke's research which led to indentifying brain regions necessary for producing and understanding speech. The best known example is a patient known as H.M, a part of his brain known as the Hippocampus was removed and was later indentified to be an area required for forming new explicit memories.

The term Neuropsychology is an umbrella term which refers to many different branches of specific research. The branches include (but are not limited to) :

·Behavioral Neuroscience, which focuses on how biological processes underlie behavior.
·Cognitive Neuroscience, which focuses on how the brain controls and modulates cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and learning. 
·Social Neuroscience, which focuses on the role the brain plays in social processes and social behaviors.
 
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)