CognitoBaby - The Ideal First Words Companion for your Toddler

Do you have a toddler who is just starting to utter their first words? If yes, the CognitoBaby learning app is something that you might want to check out. The CognitoBaby app, also called First Baby Words, is a learning app for babies and infants setting out to pick up their words and produce sounds. At this stage, infants produce a single word as a sentence, and this is called the one-word stage of child language acquisition. The app has 27 languages in it but this review will be focusing on how it helps the child learn the English language.

Around this time, infants are attracted to anything and everything around them and will go to great lengths to figure out what they are by either pointing or grabbing. CognitoBaby caters to this curiosity of infants through 250 inbuilt flashcards. These flashcards are categorised into eight:

• Numbers

• Colours

• Animals

• Vehicles

• Fruits and Vegetables

• Musical Instruments

• Household Items and

• A mix of Everything

The categories are presented as big icons, and when you touch any of the icons, you can see flashcards under that category.

1. Use of Flashcards

The flashcards under each category are big and can be easily spotted by your toddler. Moreover, the moment your toddler touches a flashcard that catches their interest, the app will produce an enlarged version of the flashcard along with an accompanying voice that pronounces the word for the baby. Once one flashcard has been read, the baby is automatically directed to the category home screen since using the ‘back’ function key is a complicated task for a toddler.

What’s more, some categories even have moving flashcards. For example, inside the ‘numbers’ type, you will find numbers from 0 to 9 floating about on the screen. This liveliness adds more value to this app as it will stimulate your baby to reach out to something that interests them, and this will also ensure stimulation of their motor skills.

This flashcard method that has been used in the app helps not only to grab the attention of your infant but also to enrich their vocabulary and is especially useful if you are noticing a speech delay in your toddler.

2. A wide variety of languages to select from

Studies show that a child exposed to two languages will acquire both languages fluently at the same time. In Sri Lanka, fluency in English apart from the mother tongue Sinhala or Tamil has become a prerequisite for almost everything in life. Therefore, CognitoBaby can function as an aid that helps your toddler become fluent in English, as English is one of the primary languages offered even in the app’s free version.

However, it doesn't stop there. If you want your child to learn words from another language like French and Chinese, that can be arranged as well since CognitoBaby has 27 languages programmed into it. However, a sum of LKR 225.00 has to be paid for each language you add.

3. Flashcards incorporate elements from the real world

Each flashcard in CognitoBaby is designed with an actual image of the object that is displayed. Unlike the clip art versions, these real images help the infant draw parallels with what they see around them and what they saw through the app.

In addition to this, the real-life images are often accompanied by the real sounds that those objects or animals make. So, for example, when you click on the dog’s picture under ‘animals’, you will hear the sound of a dog barking first before you hear the word 'dog'.

Thus, by incorporating elements from the real world onto the flashcards, CognitoBaby helps infants acquire and retain words better. This, in turn, results in the infant being better socialised into the language. Learn more about language socialisation here.

4. Non-intrusive ads in the free version

Unlike some other apps with pesky ads interrupting you every now and then, the free version of CognitoBaby has non-intrusive ads at the very bottom of the home screen. Since the other images and icons on the screen are much larger and have vibrant colours, your child will not even notice these tiny ads on the bottom.

The bonus here is that once you select a category, the ads just disappear altogether, leaving just the flashcards under the category on the screen. Isn't that amazing?

1. A limited number of words

As you must have realised by now, 250 words are not much, especially when your toddler reaches the rapid acquisition stage where they start acquiring hundreds of words within a very short time. Therefore, it is likely that your baby will outgrow this app very fast.

2. The default language is American English and the app doesn't have Sri Lankan English

The app comes with American English as the default variety but you can change it to British English if you wish by paying a sum of LKR 225.00. Unfortunately, the app doesn't have the Sri Lankan English variety which we speak. Learn more about Sri Lankan English here.

3. An adult needs to accompany the infant to make learning effective

Since the app does almost all the work, to ensure effective learning, an adult must accompany the infant when using the app and encourage them to pronounce or repeat the words they hear or name the object they see before the app does it.

All in all, CognitoBaby is one of the best apps available in the market right now that helps toddlers expand their vocabulary. Since the formative years of language acquisition play a significant role, using an app like this will help you make learning fun for your baby.