Effects of Horticultural Activities Designed to Stimulate Five Senses on the Sensory Development of Children

The purpose of this study was to look into the effect of horticultural activities designed to stimulate five senses on a child’s sensory development. This study selected 22 children at ‘H’ child community center located in D city as research subjects, and conducted a program consisting of 12 sessions (once a week) from January 4 to March 29, 2017. Each session’s horticultural activities were designed to stimulate all five senses in children. The research results are as follows: first, the control group didn’t show any significance in changes of attention concentration by sense before/after implementing the program, but in case of the experimental group, all senses but a major hand tactile sense were found significantly improved. For visual sense assessments, selective attention was improved from 4.5 scale before implementing the horticultural activity to 7.6 scale(p=.000); sustained attention was improved from 4.3 scale before implementing the activity to 7.8 scale after implementing the activity(p=.000); self-control was improved from 4.3 scale before implementing the activity to 7.3 scale (p=.000), and in case of tactile concentration, a non-major hand dexterity was enhanced from 29.6 seconds before implementing the activity to 23.2 seconds(p=.000) after implementing the activity, but a major hand didn’t show any significant change. In the measurement of auditory concentration, it was significantly improved from 9.4 score before implementing the activity to 12.2 score (p=.001) after implementing the activity. Olfactory concentration was also significantly improved from 1.2 score before implementing the activity to 2.2 score(p=.002) after implementing it. Taste concentration was also found improved significantly from 4.3 score before implementing the activity to 5.6 score(p=.001) after implementing it. The results suggest that applying horticultural activities that can stimulate all five senses using natural objects familiar and interesting to children will be effective for sensory development of children.