Amazing Apps: Infantio

 Having a baby at home is never easy, but it’s never been harder than it is now. With a pandemic raging outside, gone are the days of mommy and me music classes, stroller fitness, infant swim, and story time.  Instead, cautious parents are spending their time at home with their little ones, looking every which way for activities to safely engage and occupy their babies. 

And many of them are finding infantio! Designed to stimulate infants’ minds from the get-go, this series of high-contrast animations capitalizes on the fact that babies are born with an innate expectation of how the physical world behaves, as well as the capacity to keep track of quantities and perform basic arithmetic. Simple puzzles, patterns, counting exercises, and mechanics demonstrations are designed to captivate the tiniest thinkers – without overstimulating them.

infantio’s animations include age-appropriate patterns and puzzles as well as physics and math demonstrations. An included session timer helps parents track and manage screen time, while a soothe mode pairs the animations with calming, classical music to help babies – and their parents! – unwind and relax. 

Learn more in this interview.

Why was infantio created?

I originally set out to create something that would engage my infant daughter long enough to put her down for a minute or two without feeling guilty for rotting her brain in front of a screen! But as I got into the project, I dove into the latest research on infant cognition and used it to create animations that stimulate and activate her tiny mind. The purpose of infantio is to engage and occupy infants, while using that time to enrich their minds by demonstrating key principles and concepts in an age-appropriate way.

What sets it apart from other apps designed for toddlers and young kids?

Infantio is designed specifically for infants, using the latest infant cognition research to design animations that resonate with that age. For example, infantio animations are created using a realistic physics engine, because research has shown that infants as young as three months of age have an understanding and expectation of the behavior of the physical world – so they will be able to relate what they see on-screen with what they see in the world. Moreover, each animation is not just visual noise – as is very common with infant apps – but instead illustrates a principle that the infant would recognize in the real world – in categories like puzzles, movements, counting, patterns and more. For example, many studies have shown that infants have an innate ability to perform simple counting and arithmetic – so we modeled our counting animations on the techniques used in these studies. infantio animations are also optimized for infant perception – using high-contrast black and white shapes (since babies are born color-blind and with blurry vision) and incorporating red, the first color infants see around three months of age. In addition, infantio's minimalist design avoids overstimulation and minimizes the risk of screen addiction down the line.

How can parents use apps like this in ways that enrich their child's development?

infantio is all about responsibly and effectively using technology to enrich child development. We recommend using infantio as part of a comprehensive cognitive development regimen. Screen time should be limited for children, and not used as substitute for other types activity – so it's best to use it to maximum benefit to stimulate budding minds – and infantio accomplishes that!

Help parents everywhere keep their babies busy – and learning! – by spreading the word about infantio, available for free in the App Store and streaming on infantio.io.