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COU2778 Youth Counseling
This course provides a comprehensive overview of the unique challenges faced by at-risk children and youth in today’s society. It offers foundational knowledge in psychology to help students understand the motivations and characteristics of young people. The course focuses on building skills that enable counselors to develop and maintain positive relationships with children and adolescents, with particular attention to the critical methods needed to support them.
Through this course, students will gain practical counseling skills tailored to the needs of children and adolescents. They will learn to understand the underlying causes of children’s behaviors and motivations, become familiar with common emotional and behavioral disorders, and explore key growth and developmental difficulties. Students will develop essential counseling techniques and strategies to support at-risk youth effectively.
Key Topics Covered
- Know the Definition of Social Psychology: Gain a clear understanding of social psychology and its focus on how the presence of others influences individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
- Understand How People’s Attitudes Are Externally Changed Through Cognitive Dissonance: Explore how cognitive dissonance theory explains attitude changes in response to conflicting beliefs or behaviors.
- Explore the Bystander Effect: Learn about the psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help when others are present in an emergency.
- Understand Peripheral and Central Routes to Persuasion: Study the two routes to persuasion—central (focused on logical arguments) and peripheral (based on superficial cues)—and their impact on attitude change.
- Describe Situational versus Dispositional Influence on Behavior: Be able to differentiate between situational influences (external factors) and dispositional influences (internal traits) on human behavior.
- Describe the Fundamental Attribution Error: Understand how people often overemphasize personality traits and underestimate situational factors when explaining others’ behavior.
- Have Knowledge of the Importance of the Student-Teacher Relationship: Recognize how strong student-teacher relationships can positively impact student learning, motivation, and behavior.
REFERENCE MATERIALS
for
Full-CLC Students
Based on your HESEAP application, you have been awarded full CLC for this course, classifying it as a test-out course, meaning no traditional instruction will be provided. Your CLC award signifies that you possess knowledge, whether gained through prior education or experience, equivalent to or surpassing what would typically be learned in a traditional college setting. Consequently, classroom attendance is not required; however, you are required to successfully pass a final exam for the course.
USILACS remains committed to fostering your academic success. Should you find a refresher necessary or wish to deepen your understanding of the subject, it is recommended that you explore a variety of free online educational resources on the suggested topics below.
Thousands of FREE Online College Courses:
Search Topics: Publications/Videos/Papers
The majority of the exam questions for this course are based upon information contained in the below search topics.
- (2014) Psychology. Senior Contributing Authors: Rose M. Spielman, Formerly of Quinnipiac University, Kathryn Dumper, Bainbridge State College, William Jenkins, Mercer University, Arlene Lacombe, Saint Joseph's University, Marilyn Lovett, Livingstone College, Marion Perlmutter, University of Michigan. OpenStax. Available at: https://d3bxy9euw4e147.cloudfront.net/oscms-prodcms/media/documents/Psychology-OP.pdf
- Chapter 9: 9.3 Stages of Development; Adolescence (pg. 312-317)
- Chapter 12: 12.1 What is Social Psychology (pg. 406-411)
- 3 Attitudes and Persuasion (pg. 415-428)
- 6 Aggression; Bullying (pg. 436-437)
- (2010) Choral Techniques. Gordon Lamb, Jennifer Thornhill. OpenStax Available at: https://cnx.org/contents/tmZJJNKM@1.1:p1wm-6jN@1/Teacher-Student-Relationships
- 3 Teacher-Student Relationships
- (2017) Five Out of the Box Techniques for Encouraging Teenagers to Engage in Counseling -Vistas Online. Dr. Garry R. Walz and Dr. Jeanne C. Bleuer of Counseling Outfitters, LLC, Article no.3. American Counseling Association. Available at: https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/encouraging-teenagers.pdf?sfvrsn=4(pg. 1- 17)
- (2021) What to do when teens won’t talk in therapy. The Grateful Therapist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr7XGP8Ec9A
- (2020) Counseling Teenage Clients. The Grateful Therapist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp7DHjt9r6A
Please note that USILACS is not the source of the above links; therefore, we do not have control over their accessibility. Some links may no longer be active, and in such cases, we encourage you to copy and paste the title into Google or YouTube to find an alternative source. Should you encounter an inactive link, feel free to contact our academic team at academics@usilacs.org for assistance or to notify them so the link can be updated.
Occasionally, the links may prompt you to download reference material in PDF format. While we have made every effort to ensure the safety of the sources, we encourage you to take precautions to verify the security of any downloads on your device.
Although comprehensive study materials have been provided, you can search for the topics and titles on Google and YouTube if additional resources are needed.
Tips for Success
Remember that the exams are open-book, meaning you can keep reference materials open in other tabs for easy access during the exam. Some reference materials are extensive, with hundreds of pages. To quickly find answers, follow these steps:
- Choose a keyword or phrase from the exam question.
- Open the reference material.
- Press ‘Ctrl’ + ‘F’ on your keyboard to open a search bar.
- Enter your keyword or phrase and click search. This will display all instances of that word or phrase within the document, allowing for more efficient navigation.
