Original paper proposal

Effects of Substance Abuse on a Child’s Brain and Development

The plan for this paper is to focus on the effects of prenatal substance abuse on a child’s brain and how it can significantly affect their development. Everything a mother intakes during her pregnancy can have positive and negative effects on the growing child. Prenatal influences such as stress, substance abuse, or poor diet can alter the fetal biological system, including brain development. These influences can become a lifelong issue for the child developing into psychological problems as they grow (Wicks-Nelson & Israel, 2012). For example, teratogens can be connected with malformation and functional and behavioral impairments. They can also interfere with the formation and migration of brain cells and interfere with other developments during childhood.

I will explore the question, ” What are the effects of substance abuse on the brain and emotional development of children?”. The overall hypothesis I will be researching is how substance abuse creates problems with the brain’s development, which can affect cognition and behavior.

Instructions

Research Paper

This research paper is based on the topic which you chose during Week 1. Your paper is to be 8-10 content pages, double spaced. This assignment should include a title page, abstract, body of paper, and a reference page formatted in APA style.

Research Paper Guidelines 

During Week 7 of this course, your assignment will be a 8-10 page formal research paper based on a current topic in Child/Adolescent Psychology. Choose a topic that may not be common knowledge, raise a question to be explored and present a hypothesis. Use the table of contents of your text book to help you choose a topic. This paper is not a general research paper on Autism or ADHD  etc. but an exploration of a particular aspect of a child/adolescent psychopathology. Perhaps an exploration of ADHD and the comorbidity of other disorders is of interest to you. While you cannot do a general paper on Autism or ADHD,  you certainly may ask a questions that relates to these disorders and then research the answer. If you have a general idea but are unsure how it can be developed, please do not hesitate to email me. I am happy to work with you around this assignment. The submission of your research paper topic can certainly be a dialog and is not destined to be set in stone the first correspondence.

You should begin work early in the term n this project.  Your research paper must be APA style formatted. The Purdue University Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ ) is a helpful resource on APA formatting as is the APUS Online Library.   For your paper, you must use at least five sources from professional journals or books (popular media as Psychology Today, Web MD, blogs and Wikipedia are not permitted).   Your textbook may not count as a source.  The purpose of this assignment is to research information other than that which can be found in the textbook. When doing research, your sources must be no more than 5-7 years old. Reviewing dated research can lead to including information that is no longer valid or reliable. If you feel that you need to use a dated source, please seek approval first.

The 8-10 page requirement for this assignment refers to content pages.  Your paper must also have a cover page, a brief abstract and a citation page, all must be written according to APA formatting. 

Please remember that a research paper is a factually based document.  It is to be written entirely in the 3rd person and is not to include any opinion or personal thoughts.  Your paper must also include in-text citations for all material that is not common known.  Direct quotations should also be cited properly but should be few in number.  Be sure to proofread your paper before it is submitted. It should be free of grammar and spelling errors.

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