CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY

MONTEREY BAY

Children Sensory Play for Participation Improvement

CAPSTONE PROPOSAL

Submitted in partial satisfaction of requirements of the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE in

Instructional Science and Technology

Kimberly Quintero Ramos

August 23, 2023

Capstone Approvals: (At least one advisor and capstone instructor should approve)

Sheryl Narahara Hathaway Sheryl Narahara Hathaway ___8/23/2023_______

Advisor Name Signature Date

Miguel Lara _______Miguel Lara______________ ___9/6/2023____

Capstone Instructor Name Signature Date
 Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Introduction/Background
Background on Project
Problem Description (gap analysis)
Target Audience and Context
Environmental Scan or Literature Review
Solution Description
Goals of the Project
Learning Objectives
Proposed Solution to Fill the Gap
Learning Theories, Instructional Principles
Learning Strategies and Justification
Media Components
Anticipated Challenges
Methods/Procedures
Preliminary Results/Prototype/Steps Taken (optional)
Design/Development Narrative
Resources
Technical Skills Required
Timeline/Progress Report
Milestone Checklist
Evaluation/Testing Plan
Formative Evaluation Plan
Summative Evaluation Plan
References
 Executive Summary

Achieving early age developmental stages is important for parents and children. Many

factors, primarily genetic or environmental, may prevent children from reaching these stages.

Children are very curious about their surroundings, they often learn effortlessly from what they

see around them. Supporting their learning through sensory play is an effective social and

cognitive growth tool. Sensory play can be an outlet for discrete learning, as we are social beings

and like to interact with one another. The brain and body receive synapses from the external

world, which helps us perceive our environment. Children use their five senses to connect with

the world and communicate their likes and dislikes.

This project's scope is to access knowledge from TUCCI’s early start team about sensory

play. Their knowledge will be gathered through four learning modules containing problem-

solving questions about sensory stimuli. After completing the modules, a statistical evaluation

will be done from the responses. This information will help management to see if the team needs

more job aids or discussions about the topic. The therapist can benefit from knowing about

sensory stimuli to identify how to help their client during their developing stages. Participation

from clients is important to make transitions easier during sessions and help them make progress.

This will ensure that the sessions are valuable for the client during their time in the early start

program. Understanding what helps their client engage in the session will also help the parent

know how to help their kid during hard times. The modules will cover the five senses, sight,

smell, touch, hearing, and taste. Each of the senses will be covered in the modules and have

corresponding questions at the end. The modules will serve management as a valuable evaluation

of sensory play from their early start specialists, as they have different educational backgrounds

and levels of experience with clients.

 Introduction/Background

Background on Project

TUCCI Learning Solutions is a company that serves neurodivergent children. Their early

start specialist teams serve children from zero to three years old, where early start specialists help

the family and client to develop a better quality of life. Children that receive services appear to

have autism trait symptoms, or delays, where early start specialists intervene with their

symptoms in 1:1 home therapy sessions until the child turns three years old or the parents decide

to stop services. Parents often rely on the specialist for advice or techniques to help ground their

child from frequent tantrums and other frequent symptoms when the specialist is not at home.

Intervening with these symptoms can be hard for parents, so having well-trained specialists will

help tremendously the environment of the family dynamic for the client. That is an important

reason to have highly trained therapists to make an impact in the community, and therefore it

will impact the company. Families can recommend their services, and TUCCI can grow, keeping

its excellent reputation among other healthcare services.

Problem Description (gap analysis)

Many clients at the beginning of the program showcase the severity of their symptoms.

When they meet their therapist, they are often shy, and it can be hard to work with them. One

thing that kids like to do is play. Whether at school with their friends or at home with their

family, kids will look for something to do to have fun. Working with the client, even when the

therapist knows their information and what they like and need assistance with, it can be

challenging for the client to participate because the therapists are unfamiliar. Creating fun and

interactive sessions with the client will ensure more participation and will to learn. Learning
about sensory play and activities that will increase participation is essential to build momentum

during the program. The client will look forward to the therapy sessions because they are having

fun, and the sessions don’t feel like a chore. To understand the client better, a therapist can

implement sensory stimulation games and know about them to recommend to parents. It is

essential for therapists to know the sensory concepts to communicate what the sensory game they

are playing with the kids is doing to improve the behavior. Giving scientific answers to parents

about what the game is doing for their kid and how to implant those similar activities can do for

the client when the therapist is not at home.

Target Audience and Context

The project will have four learning modules with an ending assessment for early start

specialists at the Seaside, CA, location. The learners will participate in the modules, where their

new knowledge will be tested and evaluated. Approximately ten early start specialists are subject

to become participants in this project. The modules will be sent through the TUCCI’s work

Gmail, where they will follow the instructions to complete all the tasks. The learners will be

evaluated in the content material and their experience with the interactive modules. Specialists

have different educational backgrounds, so the answers are expected to vary. The participant's

answers are expected to be accurately completed based on their overall experience.

Environmental Scan or Literature Review

Toddlers and young kids like to explore the world using their senses. Their fine motor

skills and perception of their environment increase the more they interact. At this young age,

they cannot communicate like adults, so they express themselves through sensory activities they

enjoy. While giving therapy to clients, sensory play is a great method to stimulate their senses
and improve their symptoms. Interacting with them with sensory play will help their

development while having fun sessions. The brain of young children holds tremendous

neuroplasticity, as more sensory input gets processed, the more likely they are to learn and adapt

to the world.

Kids continue exploring their environment through their five senses: taste, sound, smell,

sight, and touch. Scientists have researched that studying or learning something new while the

senses are stimulating several parts of the brain will improve retention (Maryville, 2022).

Children are recommended to engage in sensory play to build relationships with the external

world. Sensory play is the interaction of the senses that develops connection through the input

the brain receives from the five senses. This stimulus is beneficial for babies, toddlers, and

preschoolers. Babies, for example, can benefit from sensory activities to support their language

development. During the toddler stage, cognitive abilities start to develop, paired with sensory

play, they can learn concepts, such as sorting colors and time. Preschoolers tend to explore by

themselves and will continue to develop their language. Sensory play, such as exploring musical

instruments, playing with shapes, and creating crafts, will continue developing their creativity,

language, and motor skills (Subramani, 2023).

Furthermore, the cerebral cortex rapidly makes thousands of neurons and pathways,

continuing as we age. Neuroplasticity tends to be higher at a young age, which is why many

parents teach their kids multiple languages, and they adapt easier than adults. At an early age,

neuron pathways develop through what the child experiences in their environment. Where

neuroplasticity allows them to help connect their thoughts to their actions. (Wong, 2021). The

benefits of neuroplasticity, besides allowing us to adapt and change, also sustain the ability to

learn new things throughout our lives. It promotes cognitive capabilities and recovery from
traumatic brain damage and strokes, as well as to adapt areas of the brain that are damaged to

other lobes for continuing functioning and the brain's overall health (Cherry, MSEd. (n.d.),

2022). Sensory stimuli and brain functioning work together to develop our awareness of the

world. This interaction is essential for all, especially for children in the developing stages.

Sensory play will help children to be aware of their actions and how it will affect them. It will

enhance problem-solving and memory. Practicing sensory play will support fine motor skills,

language development, emotional regulation, and social skills. Children can enjoy exploring

nature or at home and develop their creativity (Action for Children, 2022).

Finally, psychologist pioneer Jean Piaget is well known for his popular research on

developmental psychology. He was one of the first theorists that suggested sensory play. One of

his theories, developmental stage theory, implies that sensory play can be viewed as systemic

processes of learning that can be identified as stages. Piaget encourages children to explore their

environment to stimulate their cognitive development. Through this experience, children will be

able to digest knowledge that will help them in the future and can be used as reference,

improving their brain development. (Subramani, 2023).

Solution Description

Goals of the Project

The project's goal is to assess formal knowledge from their current early-start specialists

and analyze their new information about sensory concepts. Additionally, the results of the project

will demonstrate to management several key factors about the therapists' knowledge. As

mentioned before, sensory play is important to stimulate learning in this population. The project

will help us determine how well the early start team can identify different sensory components.

There are two main components that we are looking for, one is how well the specialist can
identify what sensory play to use, and second, how well they can implement it. The modules

assessment questions will help assess their fresh learning input for a statistical evaluation. Since

the therapists have experience working with many clients, they might know about sensory play

but need to learn the terms more or learn the differences to better explain to parents.

As they are present to help with the family dynamic and their client's development, the project's

overall goal is to affirm that the two concepts are mastered to improve the therapist's services.

Learning Objectives

In this project, the four learning modules will be evaluated to verify the learning outcome

of the participants. The learning modules will increase participants' knowledge of the five senses

to help their clients further. The following learning objectives will be tested throughout the

modules:

● From memory, early-start specialists will be able to recall the sensory definitions by

the end of the modules

● Given the modules information, specialists will be able to explain the differences

between each sensory

● Given information on sensory play in the modules, the specialist will be able to

identify which sensory strategy to use in different behavior scenarios

Proposed Solution to Fill the Gap

To ease the transitions at the beginning of the program, the clients’ therapists will

participate in learning modules to acquire their formal knowledge about sensory play. The

learning modules will simplify the five sensory stimuli that can be used during sessions to

improve participation. The improvement in participation will improve their symptoms.

Furthermore, early engagement will promote better transitions with and without the therapist at

home as the therapist will be able to communicate additional methods that parents can use at

home to improve their kid’s quality of life. The modules will test if the therapists are able to

recall the five sensory stimuli. The therapist will be able to identify between each of the sensory

stimuli. The interactive modules will provide different case scenarios where the therapist will

have the opportunity to identify how they can solve these problems as they would in real life.

From the module's results, management can determine if more discussions or resources are

needed for their team to reach their job responsibilities.

Learning Theories, Instructional Principles

The learning theories for this project include Behaviorist Learning Theory, which

encloses people’s behavior and how to “change” or “elicit particular behavior” (Harasim, 2017,

p. 33). As clients have their objectives to reach, early start specialists also have learning

objectives to achieve. For parents and clients to follow instructions by the specialists, the

specialist must not guess techniques or do what parents suggest as both circumstances are not

empirically based. Applying behaviorist learning theory in this project will allow for testable

objectives and ensure how well the specialist knows the techniques to be used during their

session. To further expand this concept, cognitivist learning theory will also be introduced in this

project. To help the client, we must know why they are responding to things in an unusual way.

The Cognitivist Learning Theory tells us that “modeling the mental structures and processes that

operate in the mind to explain behavior” (Harasim, 2017, p. 49). In other words, the specialist

should be aware of the antecedents and recognize them to help their client succeed during their

therapy sessions.
Learning Strategies and Justification

This project will have three learning strategies: the coherence principle, the modality

principle, and the segmenting and pre-training principles. The modality principle will help

develop the modules by providing narrating speech instead of on-screen text. This will maintain

focus on the modules and make the information easy to follow without overwhelming the slides

with text. The coherence principle will be applied to avoid extra material that can hurt the

learning experience, such as distracting images, words, and background music. The last learning

strategy is the segmentation and pretraining principles. This principle will allow the breakdown

of learning material into small segments to enable the learners to comprehend the material before

moving into the next section.

Media Components

The modules will be designed and developed in Articulate and exported using SCORM

for the participants. The authoring tool for this project will be Articulate Rise 360, as it provides

many features that can create the planned interactive factors. Using Articulate Rise 360, will

allow for a more creative outcome and better content retention when paired with the learning

strategies. The completed modules will be distributed through the TUCCI’s work Gmail to the

participants. The mediums to build the modules and way to access it will include:

● Articulate Rise 360 cloud

● Articulate Rise 360, interactive features, images, icons, and audio

● SCORM, export modules delivery

 ● Google suite applications (Gmail, and Google Forms)

Anticipated Challenges

Some anticipated challenges include not having a large pool of participants. As this

project’s modules will be given to early-start specialists in the Seaside area, the expected number

of participants does not exceed 20. Another anticipated challenge is that the participants might

lose or forget to open the participation invite email for this project, which can result in fewer

responses.

Methods/Procedures

Preliminary Results/Prototype/Steps Taken (optional)

Design/Development Narrative

To develop this project, the ADDIE model will be used as it compliments this project the

best; it provides the appropriate steps to take to develop this project. ADDIE consists of 5 steps,

Analyze, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation; as this project continues,

ADDIE will serve as a guide to follow and allow revisions in between to consider needed

reviews by the SME. Conducting revisions with the SMEs of this project will ensure that the

project will deliver the desired expected outcome.

Steps to Complete Project

Incorporating the ADDIE model will allow to separate this project into sections, having

these sections is essential to keep the work accurate. Each section of the ADDIE model will

correspond to the milestone checklist created for this project. The timeline has been created
following the prerequisite requirements for the Instructional Science and Technology program to

stay consistent with the program’s timeline. In addition, the following steps will take place to

complete the modules:

1. Approval of content material by SMEs

2. Create modules Storyboard

3. Pre-test, post-test survey, and usability survey development questionnaire

4. Deliver modules and surveys to participants

5. Gather data from surveys

6. Analyze data using a T-test to compare results

Resources

To develop the learning modules of this project, I needed to be resourceful to learn

Articulate 360. This authoring software is in demand in the industry, and to gain experience, I

chose it for this project. Meetings with my capstone advisor helped shape the project by sticking

to the project's guidelines and making sure all the details were on the modules. Another resource

was my previous IST 626 Advanced Instructional Design professor, who helped me find

YouTube videos to learn Articulate. As well as to teach me how to make simple yet valuable

learning objectives for my learning modules. Through the YouTube videos, I have learned how

to add images and audio, customize temples, and export the modules for the client. These factors

all came together quickly; this project has been my only practice using Articulate 360.

Additionally, the CSUMB library was a great resource for my project. Searching on the

library's database helped me find the resources to learn more about the five senses. To narrow

down articles about the five senses, I spoke to the librarian to help me find better articles. The

articles we found benefitted this project because the learning modules needed accurate data and
examples. The SME for this project provided worksheets about the senses, which complemented

the information I found in the library. Finally, a great resource for this project was staying in

touch with the SME and capstone advisor to collaborate well. We used Zoom as our preferred

application for communicating. Obtaining feedback live was a great benefit to revise the project's

progress, as we all had different working schedules. Organizing meetings through Zoom was

more manageable and not costly than meeting in person. The resources for this project were free

of cost since all the tools were at hand for the SME to develop the modules. By becoming more

resourceful and asking questions to my professor and project advisor, I could easily access

Articulate and effectively use the CSUMB library resources.

Technical Skills Required

The technical requisite skills are on hand.

Timeline/Progress Report

Milestone Checklist

Task Description Timeline Status

1. Capstone Sent Capstone Proposal to all August 23, Done
Proposal SMEs for approval and signatures 2023
Revisions
2. Modules and Sent Modules storyboard and August 24, Done
Survey survey drafts to SME for revision 2023
Revisions
3. Progress Capstone progress presentation August 27, Done
Report during orientation and submission 2023
to Canvas
4. Send out Send the modules to participants August 28, Done
modules to through Gmail 2023
participants
5. Statistical Complete statistical evaluation August 30, Done
Analysis from the results of the modules 2023
and surveys
6. Capstone Submit final version of Capstone September Pending
Proposal Project to Canvas 5, 2023
 7. Capstone Submit final version of Capstone September Pending
Storyboard Storyboard to Canvas 26, 2023
8. Capstone Complete Capstone Project November Pending
Project 21, 2023
9. Capstone Make one-page summary about December 6, Pending
Summary Capstone Project 2023
10. Final Report Complete a final report on December 12, Pending
Capstone Project 2023
11. Final Google Submit all deliverables created for December 12, Pending
Drive: All Capstone Project and ePortfolio 2023
Evidence
Files
12. Capstone Make a pre-recorded video about December 12, Pending
Project Capstone Presentation 2023.
Presentation
13. Capstone Present Capstone Project during December 15, Pending
Festival the Capstone Festival 2023

Evaluation/Testing Plan
Formative Evaluation Plan

The formative evaluation of the project will test the objectives in the modules to verify

the content's effectiveness. Formative evaluation will be included before starting the modules

and throughout it. Before participating in the modules, the learners will answer a pre-survey

about the incoming learning objectives in the slides. This will allow for a pre-and post-learning

measurement of the content being implemented. It will also ensure that the content delivery has

been effective or if it needs revisions for the continuing modules. An assessment at the end of the

modules will be presented to measure their new knowledge, where the learner can find a review

slide and multiple-choice questions waiting to be answered.

Summative Evaluation Plan

The summative evaluation will determine the modules worth and consequently this

project's purpose. Although the summative evaluation will not be as common as the formative
evaluations, SMEs can find the results of the post-survey and summative results of the modules

and see if the project has been of value. The post-survey will help gather the last piece of data to

draw the needs analysis for the modules as it allows a contrast of learning between what the

participant knew before embarking on the project and what they have learned at the end. Also, it

will show the effectiveness of the modules content and what segments have been influential and

well-understood. Management then can acknowledge if their therapist needs further assistance

reviewing sensory play. They can assist them by addressing sensory play information in their

meetings and/or creating additional job aids to help their therapist.

 References

Harasim, Linda, (2017), Learning Theory and Online Technologies, 2nd edition, Behaviorist
Learning Theory, p.33.

Harasim, Linda, (2017), Learning Theory and Online Technologies, 2nd edition, Cognitivist
Learning Theory, p.49.

Kendra Cherry, MSEd. (n.d.) (November 8, 2022). How brain neurons change over time from
life experience. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-brain-plasticity-
2794886

Subramani, A. (February 6, 2023). Exploring the benefits of sensory play for children. Only
About Children. https://www.oac.edu.au/news-views/sensory-play/

The importance of the 5 senses in learning and studying. Maryville Online. (September 28,
2022). https://online.maryville.edu/blog/importance-of-5-senses-in-learning/

What is sensory play and why is it important?. (February, 2022) Action for Children. (n.d.).
https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/blog/what-is-sensory-play-and-why-is-it-important/

Wong, C. (September 18, 2021). Neuroplasticity exercises: Why Do Children Improve Way
Faster at chess than adults?. Circle Magazine | Health, Wellness & Genetics Blog.
https://magazine.circledna.com/top-neuroplasticity-exercises-to-challenge-your-brain/