Promoting Healthy Development in Early Childhood: A Proposal of a Mobile Application

Joana Tavares, Rita Santos, Oksana Tymoshchuk

2025

Abstract

Developing digital solutions to support parents of children in early childhood is crucial for enhancing parenting practices and promoting child development. In the context of an intervention project that advocates the child's emotional, social, cognitive and cultural development and stable growth from prenatal life until the first three years of life, a multidisciplinary team collaborated to propose a mobile application supporting parents in promoting their children's healthy development during this period. The study followed a development research methodology, including a literature review, comparative analysis of existing apps, prototype development, and evaluation. This approach, combined with user-centred design, helped to identify critical features and design principles for an effective parental support app. The resulting app proposal foresees personalized resources, from different categories, a digital diary, suggestions of activities to be carried out with the child and recommendations of events. Evaluation results showed that an app based on this proposal can be an important resource for parents and foster positive parenting behaviours, benefiting parents and children. This research contributes to the growing field of digital health solutions for early childhood development, presenting a promising tool to enhance parental support and child well-being.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Tavares J., Santos R. and Tymoshchuk O. (2025). Promoting Healthy Development in Early Childhood: A Proposal of a Mobile Application. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE; ISBN 978-989-758-743-6, SciTePress, pages 276-283. DOI: 10.5220/0013292700003938

in Bibtex Style

@conference{ict4awe25,
author={Joana Tavares and Rita Santos and Oksana Tymoshchuk},
title={Promoting Healthy Development in Early Childhood: A Proposal of a Mobile Application},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE},
year={2025},
pages={276-283},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013292700003938},
isbn={978-989-758-743-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE
TI - Promoting Healthy Development in Early Childhood: A Proposal of a Mobile Application
SN - 978-989-758-743-6
AU - Tavares J.
AU - Santos R.
AU - Tymoshchuk O.
PY - 2025
SP - 276
EP - 283
DO - 10.5220/0013292700003938
PB - SciTePress