HUS 3020 - Human Development Through the Lifespan

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Credit(s): 3
Contact Hours: 47
Effective Term Fall 2021 (595)

Requisites

Admission to Health Services Administration (Bachelor of Applied Science) (HSA-BAS) or
Admission to Human Services (Bachelor of Science) (HUMSVC-BS)

Course Description

This course is designed to educate human services workers to human development across the lifespan. This course will discuss factors that make a person distinctively different. The course will work through the major theories explaining our cognitive, biological, emotional, and social development through various life stages- such as prenatal, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The student also will learn how to identify lifespan needs and/or limitations for a client within the counseling setting.

Learning Outcomes and Objectives

  1. Students will examine human development throughout the lifespan by:
    1. differentiating theories of development and transitions across the lifespan.
    2. discriminating between types of human behavior, including developmental crises, disability, psychopathology, and situational and environmental factors affecting both normal and abnormal behavior.
    3. differentiating amongst theories and models of individual, cultural, couple, family, and community resilience.
  2. Students will examine major theories in lifespan development by:
    1. comparing how lifespan theories explain the developmental process by exploring psychodynamic, neo-Freudian, behaviorism, cognitive, humanistic, evolutionary, and biological theories.
    2. applying developmental needs and/or limitations in the counseling setting to specific age groups across the lifespan such as children, adolescents, adults, and geriatric populations.
  3. Students will examine how personality, social development, and relationships grow, change, and remain the same across a lifetime by:
    1. explaining contemporary theories and the counseling implications such theories play in the counseling process.
    2. investigating the effects of culture and ethnicity on development across the lifespan.
    3. exploring the effects of parental divorce across the lifespan.
    4. analyzing the ethical responsibilities for counselors when working with unique developmental populations such as children and geriatrics.
    5. uncovering the causes of adolescent suicide.
    6. scrutinizing the effects neurocognitive development has on geriatric populations.
  4. Students will scrutinize the role that theories, hypothesis, and research play in the study of human development by:
    1. explaining how social scientist use various research methodologies, such as experiments, correlation, and descriptive designs to compare the consequences of human interaction.
    2. distinguishing how developmental research may be used for social advocacy in an attempt to improve public policy.

Criteria Performance Standard

For successful completion of this course, the student will receive a minimum of 70% and demonstrate mastery of the objectives and measures developed by the individual course instructors.

History of Changes

C&I Approval: , BOT Approval: , Effective Term: Fall 2021 (595)

Related Programs

  1. Human Services (HUMSVC-BS) (640) (Active)