About:
The Course
Course Materials
Technical Requirements
The Lessons
Progress Evaluations
Grades
Study Hints
The Course
Course Description:
The course investigates specific aberrations of normal development that impact children and their families in their home, school and community. The content will include definitions of childhood psychiatric disorders, prevalence, gender, co-morbidity, developmental course, and intervention. The course also includes applications of intervention and prevention, with a focus on a multidisciplinary team approach involving teachers, counselors, school nurses, school psychologists, social workers, families and outside providers. A particular emphasis will center on working with families and school personnel to promote wellness in children and adolescents.
Prerequisite requirements:
Exploring mental health issues in schools;
Developmental aspects of learning.
Students may seek permission from the instructor for a waiver of these requirements
Personal Policy for the course:
The course will be conducted online. Students are expected to read assigned chapters, complete written assignments, complete exams, and submit a final 8-10 page paper on an agreed upon topic related to childhood mental health. More information on this can be found under Progress Evaluation.
Nature and aims of the course:
The course will offer an exploration into the specific aberrations of normal development (e.g., self control, peer relations, attachment, conscience, cognition, work, etc.) which impact the individual in his or her home, school and community.
Issues discussed include definitions of various childhood psychiatric conditions, characteristics (including prevalence, gender, socioeconomic and racial factors), co-morbidity, transition school-to-work, developmental course, etiology and intervention. The course will emphasize current evidence-based practices and applications of intervention and prevention models including humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and family systemic approaches. Individual case studies will be incorporated into class material.
Why the course is important:
This course is important because it exposes students to the foundation of diagnostic information related to childhood psychiatric illness and provides practical examples of the impact of emotional and behavioral aberrations. Students will be able to identify behavioral "red flags" and recognize a variety of childhood psychiatric diagnoses.
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Course Materials
Required Textbooks:
DSM-IV Training Guide For Diagnosis of Childhood Disorders. Rapoport, Judith L. & Ismond, Deborah R. (1996). Brunner/Mazel.
Recommended Materials:
Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Ed., Revised (DSM-IV-TR). American Psychiatric Association (APA), (2000).
Developmental Psychopathology, 4th Ed.. Wenar, Charles & Kerig, Patricia K. (2000), McGraw-Hill.
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Technical Requirements
Hardware Recommendations: PC
- Pentium 75 processor
- 20 MB RAM
- Hard disk drive with 70 MB free space
- SVGA monitor
- 56k modem
Hardware Recommendations: Macintosh
- Macintosh Power PC Processor
- 20 MB RAM
- System 7.5.3
- Hard disk drive with 70 MB free space
- SVGA monitor
- 56k modem
Please note that WWW browser performance will be enhanced if your system exceeds these recommendations.
Software Requirements
You will need a Web browser that supports graphics and JavaScript
(Netscape Communicator/Navigator 4.0 or higher or Microsoft Internet
Explorer 4.0 or higher). Your browser should also accept cookies, which are used solely to verify your login.
An active e-mail account is also required for instructor-evaluated
courses. Some courses may require software for playing or recording audio or video, reading documents in PDF, etc.
It is suggested that you have virus protection software
on your system. Norton AntiVirus or Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit are recommended
for PC users and Disinfectant is recommended for Mac users. Virus
protection software will help to protect your system (and ours)
against computer viruses. MU students can download virus protection software
at https://ea-front.missouri.edu.
College/University Students: Check with your on-campus computing services office
about access to the Internet/WWW. Many colleges and universities
offer students e-mail accounts and software as well as Web access.
(MU students should check with the Division of Information Technology.)
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The Lessons
This course is comprised of 15 lessons. Each lesson contains the following sections:
The Introduction consists of:
- the purpose, which states the author's aim in designing the lesson;
- the objectives, which list the specific kinds of knowledge you should gain from the lesson; and
- the reading assignment, which specifies what pages you must read for the lesson.
The Commentary consists of the author's discussion of the important topics covered by the lesson and may offer some additional information concerning the topics discussed in the text.
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Progress Evaluations
A progress evaluation follows two of the lessons, Lesson 8 and Lesson 15. You will receive a lesson report for each progress evaluation.
The lesson report provides feedback designed to help you understand any
questions you may have missed.
Both progress evaluations are graded by your instructor or graduate teaching assistant. The points earned on each progress evaluation count toward your final course grade. The two progress evaluations in this course include:
- Case Conceptualization: Write a case study diagnostic conceptualization. The case will be provided by the instructor. The case conceptualization will be brief and concise (2-3 pages). The case conceptualization paper is to be submitted after lesson 8 (5 points).
- Final Paper: Write an 8-10 page paper in American Psychological Association format on any topic discussed in the course. Some examples include (1) writing on a specific evidence based practice and/or intervention, or (2) writing on a DSM-IV diagnosis covered in the class. The paper is to be submitted after lesson 15 (20 points).
A Note about Confidentiality: When completing progress evaluations, you may want to draw from your personal experiences in the schools or from your work with children and families. However, when including comments or details from your personal experiences DO NOT include names, birth dates, locations or any identifying information about the children or families or anyone else involved in your experiences. Including such identifying information would be inappropriate, unethical, and possibly illegal. Please double-check all your assignments for such information prior to submitting them.
All progress evaluations must be submitted to the Center for scoring. After your progress evaluation has been scored, you will receive a lesson report, which gives your score and provides comments to help you improve your work. (If the report still does not help you understand troublesome questions, then you may write or send e-mail to the Center describing your specific difficulty. Be sure to identify the course and the lesson number as well as the question number.)
More detailed instructions for completing the progress evaluations can be found below.
Note: The progress evaluations for this course are instructor-evaluated and require written responses. These should be completed using Microsoft
Word 97 or a more recent version of
Word.
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Grades
The course will consists of two progress evaluations and 3 Exams. The Case Conceptualization will be worth
a total of 5 points, the Final Paper will be worth 20, the the 3 Exams will be worth a total of 75
points.
| Case conceptualization |
5
|
| Paper |
20
|
| Exams (3 × 25) |
75
|
|
Total
|
100
|
| Points/Percentage |
Grade |
| 90–100 |
A |
| 80–89 |
B |
| 70–79 |
C |
| 0–69 |
F |
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Study Hints
Learning at a distance or taking a WWW course may be a new experience for you. Although there are many similarities to face-to-face instruction, there are many differences as well. Some of these similarities and differences will seem like advantages and some like disadvantages. We hope that the suggestions that follow will help you adapt to the distance learning environment, maximize its strengths for your learning, and find ways to become a successful online student.
- Set Goals for Yourself
- List the most important goals first and make sure they are specific and realistic. Then, reward yourself as you make progress toward your goals. Examples of goals you might set for yourself include: (1) work for at least one hour on a lesson before you take a break, (2) spend enough time on each lesson that you understand all the concepts before going on to the next lesson, (3) try to answer all the questions on a progress evaluation without looking in the book first, and (4) try to improve your scores each time you take a progress evaluation.
- Develop a Study Plan
- Each student has a different learning style. Some people like to work on difficult tasks first to get them over with. Some people like to start with easy problems to build up their confidence. Some like to work for several hours and then take a break. Others like to break their work into smaller chunks of time. Think about your own preferences; then record how long it takes you to complete the first lesson or two. You can use this information to prepare your own study plan for completing the entire course.
- Keep Your Study Materials Neat and Well-Organized
- Have your textbook, pen or pencil, paper, dictionary, and other materials readily available. That way you won’t waste valuable study time looking for supplies.
- Focus on the Lesson Purpose and Objectives
- Each lesson is designed to give you a preview of what is coming and lets you know what you should focus on. Read the purpose and objectives for the lesson carefully because they correspond to the main points within the lesson’s instruction as well as to the areas covered in your assignments and/or examinations.
- Keep a List of Vocabulary Words and New Concepts
- Make sure you look up any unfamiliar words or concepts before submitting progress evaluations.
- Be Aware of Computing Habits
- At home, you may use the computer for games or while you are doing something else like eating, talking on the telephone, etc. You may pay attention only to the portions of the computer program in which you have great interest. Participating in a WWW course is not like that. You need to stay focused on the content and participate fully in the learning activities presented.
- Manage Your Time Wisely
- Preparing for your examinations should be a daily activity. Throughout the course, take complete notes, review each lesson, and read your textbook regularly. Don’t wait until exam time to try to learn everything at once. When you receive your lesson reports, review the comments carefully and look up answers to any questions you may have missed. Make sure you understand the concepts in each lesson before going on to the next. If you have questions about the lesson reports, contact Student Services at the Center for Distance and Independent Study at 1-800-609-3727.
- Take Responsibility for Your Learning
- Without a teacher present, you must make a special effort to understand the course content. The commentary on the course Web site is designed to take the place of class lectures. But you will need to do more than simply read the commentary in order to understand the lesson concepts fully. Most lessons include discussions of important points, additional examples, and study questions to supplement the material you will read in the textbook.
- Use Online Help Features
- If you need help with using software, check to see if there is an online tutorial or the help feature on the menu bar. Different Internet Service Providers may also provide a contact person or "help desk" that you may call. Sometimes a Web search will help you discover solutions to technology problems. If you are exploring the Internet, many different sites also have a help feature called FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).
- Share Your Thoughts and Opinions
- Let the Center know how you feel about the effectiveness of participating in a distance education environment like the Internet. As you finish the course, you will have the opportunity to complete an evaluation form. Your input will help us plan for future distance course delivery.
- Think Critically About WWW Sources
- The Internet and WWW are wonderful educational tools for students and faculty. However, there is so much information available and not all sites are of excellent quality. Therefore, critical thinking and evaluation skills are important as you explore different sites. It’s important to ask questions like—Is it accurate? current? meaningful? researched? supported by people knowledgeable in the field? thorough? The following are links to some excellent resources that survey a variety of evaluation criteria for Web information:
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