Wednesday, April 30, 2014

45 percent of graduate students in child psychology had exposure to child/adolescent lifespan development

Sometimes you come across a statement that sort of stops you in your tracks. "Am I misreading this?" "What am I missing?" Here is an example from 1 in 68 Children Now Has a Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Why? by Enrico Gnaulati.
Poring over the numbers of a 2010 study out of the University of Hartford in Connecticut, I discovered that 45 percent of graduate students in child psychology had either no exposure to, or had just an introductory-level exposure to, coursework in child/adolescent lifespan development. It is in these classes that emerging child psychologists learn about what is developmentally normal to expect in children.
How could a graduate student in child psychology not have a grounding in child development? To someone outside the field, that would seem to be like a graduate student in economics not having a grounding in, say, microeconomics. So what am I missing? What is a child psychology graduate studying if they are not studying child/adolescent lifespan development?

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