In this course, we dive into the topic of child development. You will learn that child development is complex and is influenced by a surprisingly rich number of factors at many different levels of organization. You will see that development can be studied in various domains and at various levels of understanding, from different angles and disciplines. Importantly, you will come to understand that processes within and between the various domains and levels of organization continuously interact to shape development. This implies that understanding development requires taking an interdisciplinary approach.
Offered By


Understanding child development: from synapse to society
Utrecht UniversityAbout this Course
Offered by

Utrecht University
Founded in 1636 and located in the heart of the Netherlands, Utrecht University is one of Europe's leading research universities, recognised internationally for a high-quality, innovative approach to research and teaching. Studying at Utrecht University means studying at one of the world's best universities, with a total student body of around 30,000 students and 12 Nobel prize winners.Utrecht University offers over 90 graduate programmes (MSc, MA) and 12 undergraduate programmes (BSc, BA, LLM). All programmes are fully English-taught, and cover a wide range of academic disciplines including Natural Sciences, Law, Governance, Life Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences and Earth Sciences.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Introduction to Dynamics of Youth
After a general introduction to this MOOC, this week focuses on the developmental systems approach to understand development. We will illustrate how such an approach can be facilitated by introducing you to Dynamics of Youth, a strategic research theme of Utrecht University set up to foster interdisciplinary research on child and adolescent development.
Brain and motor development
In the first week of this course, we explained the developmental systems approach and introduced you to Dynamics of Youth as an example of how this approach can be adopted in practice. Now it is time to dive into child development itself. This week, we will be focusing on two domains of development: the brain and motor control.
Cognitive development
This week we will focus on cognitive development and how this affects how children think and act. You will see that information from the previous week, in which we discussed the development of the brain and motor skills, can be used to understand cognitive development.
Communication
This week’s focus is on communication. As you will see, language development is tightly interwoven with cognitive development and as such is also closely related to brain and motor development.
Reviews
- 5 stars75.96%
- 4 stars17.78%
- 3 stars2.88%
- 2 stars0.96%
- 1 star2.40%
TOP REVIEWS FROM UNDERSTANDING CHILD DEVELOPMENT: FROM SYNAPSE TO SOCIETY
It's a really helpful course to lead you understand develomental psychology.
A very comprehensive course on early childhood development.
It was not an easy course at all. You need to take it seriously but it was enjoyable for whom the topic is interested
Increased my knowledge about child development. Helpful quizzes, assessments and forums.
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