Infants experience natural objects using their sense of touch

Term

2012

Capstone

Thesis

Degree Name

MAED: NSEE

Abstract

The main research question is what exploratory touch behaviors do infants use to learn about common objects from an outdoor natural environment? This capstone details the benefits to children when exploring and spending quality unstructured playtime in an outdoor natural environment, how infants use their sense of touch to learn about object properties, and how researchers study infants' abilities to discriminate between different surface textures. Key influences for this capstone was the inspiration of Dr. Jane Goodall and the writer's infant son. Observation data of infants' use of exploratory touch behaviors on natural objects and parent survey questions to determine how infants spend time in an outdoor natural environment was analyzed. The results showed increased hand manipulation and visual regard as infants near a year old and exploratory behaviors depended on the object's surface texture and properties. Prior experience in an outdoor natural environment had no influence.

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