Kinedu
Parents are children’s first teachers. As such, they need to have access to quality tools to stimulate their development. The Kinedu app aims to assist and motivate parents in their efforts to promote their children’s learning process with a series of activities that transform a home into a personalized ECD center for each child. The app’s format and content let anyone, even those with no prior training, to conduct the activities. In addition, it provides caregivers with information on children’s progress to help them gain a better understanding of the importance of interactions and the focus on quality for ECD. This app is available in more than 180 countries and includes content in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
Problematic
In Latin America and the Caribbean, a large number of girls and boys do not have access to adequate levels of interaction with their parents or caregivers. In order to promote suitable caregiving and childrearing practices, a number of strategies have been implemented in the region through home visits or training sessions for caregivers at specialized early childhood development centers. While these interventions have proved to be beneficial, they are still operating at a limited scale. Therefore, digital tools containing quality information could make a big difference, particularly if they provide personalized information in a simple and attractive language to favor the strengthening of caregiver-child ties.
Solution
Basically, Kinedu is an app that provides caregivers a daily creative activities plan to support the development of babies from gestation through age 4. It consists of 300 development goals and 1,600-plus activities. The latter are based on ECD evidence and are adjusted to the baby’s age. Additionally, the app can be used to monitor progress along four development pillars (cognitive, language, physical and socio-emotional). Its intuitive, stress-free format helps family members connect with each other using the same content. Kinedu also offers childcare advice and access to articles on health and development.
Evaluation and Impact
In a random allocation experiment, 60 caregivers (mothers and fathers) of 6 to 24 months old children were picked. A group of 30 caregivers in California watched one of six available videos about the Kinedu app. These videos focused on activities aimed at fostering cognitive development, with contents that were adequate for the children’s ages. The 30 caregivers in the second group were not assigned any video to watch and were asked to play with their children the way they did at home. The interactions in both groups consisted of 3-minute sessions. The parents from the group that watched the Kinedu video experienced a greater number of spoken words, but less word diversity compared with the second-group parents. The conclusion was that the activity videos can motivate parents to interact more with their children, but in a more repetitive fashion. Lessons learned? – It can be extremely useful for homes where parents do not interact enough with their children. Simple activities and timely information can empower parents who are unaware of the importance of interaction for children’s development. This type of interventions need further evaluation.