Most animals learn incredibly fast—often surprising their people within the very first few lessons! We recommend short, five-minute sessions, practiced regularly. These quick lessons keep learning fun, prevent frustration, and make it easy to fit communication practice into your day.

Your animal can begin expressing meaningful preferences right away, then gradually build toward symbols, yes-and-no communication, speech boards, reading, and more. Every learner is different, but you don’t need hours of training each day to make wonderful progress—just five playful minutes at a time!

Nope! A tablet is only one of the many ways we teach animals to communicate. Animal Kindergarten includes preference training, object and symbol choices, printed communication cards, yes-and-no systems, body-language observation, early reading activities, and tablet-based speech boards.

These other methods work wonderfully, too—and some may be a better fit for your animal. You can begin communicating with simple items you already have at home, without purchasing any technology at all. If you and your learner decide to explore a tablet later, we’ll help you add it when you’re ready!

You do not need a special tablet! We love newer Samsung Galaxy Tab A models, iPads, and iPad minis. Just be cautious with older tablets—some no longer support current operating systems or may not work smoothly with speech-board apps. Before purchasing, check the requirements for the communication app you plan to use. (We can help you with this, too!)

Choose a screen size that comfortably matches your animal’s body size. A small tablet may be perfect for very small animals, while a regular-sized tablet—such as a 10.1-inch model—can work well for cats, small dogs, rats & squirrels. Larger animals can also use standard-sized tablets, but they may benefit from a securely mounted touchscreen kiosk when one is available. And if not, full-sized tablets can still be fantastic for them, too!

A sturdy kids’ case and/or secure mount can make the device safer and easier for your learner to use.

Tablet-based speech boards give your animal a way to independently share their wants, needs, observations, questions, and ideas—with menus that provide nearly limitless opportunities for expansion! Each vocabulary option includes an image or other visual representation paired with a spoken word. When your learner touches it, the tablet says the word aloud. Some selections can open organized menus, allowing hundreds—or even thousands—of vocabulary options to fit on a single portable device. Our early research suggests that once animals understand the system, they may even independently learn and use newly added images!

You do not need a special Animal Kindergarten device. You can download a commercially available communication app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and customize it for your learner. Some apps are free, while others charge a small one-time or monthly fee.

We’ll help you begin with a few meaningful choices, teach your learner how the images and spoken words work together, and gradually add vocabulary as their understanding grows. Animals of many species—including cats, dogs, cows, squirrels, elephants, kangaroos, and even lizards—can learn to use simple tablet-based communication!

Animal Kindergarten is designed to meet each animal where they are. Rather than relying on a single communication method, we explore a whole range of possibilities—including preference training, object and image choices, yes-and-no communication, printed picture cards, tablet-based speech boards, and even early reading activities.

In this way, we can reach nearly every learner, bringing powerful and empowering communication to caregivers and their little ones!

Every animal has unique interests, abilities, and ways of interacting with the world. Some may love the tablet, while others communicate most clearly through cards, preferred objects, or “yes” and “no” choices. Our goal is to help you discover the communication methods that are meaningful, accessible, and enjoyable for your individual animal—and support you as you build communication within your family!

Yes! Animal Kindergarten’s methods grew directly from our extensive research with parrots and early research with other animals, conducted with university collaborators and shared through peer-reviewed publications and scientific conferences. Combined, the animals have undergone over two-dozen communication and emergent literacy tests and analyses in peer-reviewed and published articles and conferences.

In our first published speech-board study, Ellie, a cockatoo, completed 62 requests and follow-up tasks with a 94% positive corroboration rate—meaning her subsequent choices and behavior consistently supported the meaning of her original selections. Later studies followed Ellie’s independent speech-board use over seven months and found that she used it not only to make requests, but for a broad range of purposeful communication, cognitive enrichment, and social interaction.

One of our favorite features of tablet communication is that learners might “auto-learn” without training, modeling or instruction! Our ongoing research has revealed that Ellie appears to spontaneously learn—or “auto-learn”—some newly introduced vocabulary options within her tablet communication system as soon as she discovers them! When a new option has certain visual, conceptual, or organizational features that help her infer its meaning, she may begin using it appropriately. We are continuing to investigate which features support this kind of independent vocabulary growth.

Our reading methods have also been evaluated under blind testing conditions. In our early phonics research, two cockatoos achieved 74% overall accuracy on reading-related tasks. Ellie later achieved 92% accuracy in a blind reading-comprehension study, learning written words and identifying their meanings. In a peer-reviewed 17-month study, Isabelle achieved 71% accuracy identifying unfamiliar spoken words from written choices while the experimenter was blinded to the correct answer. Our newer research—including Ellie’s work with longer, unfamiliar words and multi-bird studies of yes-and-no communication—is continuing.

This is still a young area of science, and individual animals will learn in different ways and at different rates. However, our results provide evidence that parrots can learn foundational communication and literacy skills—and may even use familiar patterns and features to independently expand their vocabularies. This research forms the foundation of the short, playful lessons we teach in Animal Kindergarten.

Scientists do not yet know the limit! Across species, communication systems range from ants using a chemical “vocabulary” of roughly 10–20 pheromone signals to individual animals learning more than 1,000 labels or vocabulary options. Chaser the border collie learned the names of 1,022 objects; Rico the border collie knew more than 200; Alex the African grey parrot used labels for objects, colors, shapes, numbers, and abstract concepts; and Kanzi the bonobo communicated through hundreds of symbols and understood novel spoken sentences. Ellie’s communication system now gives her access to approximately 1,500 icons—and, in some cases, appears to have “auto-learned”!

And communication extends far beyond human-style words. Rats have remembered 32 different scents and the contexts in which they encountered them. Honeybees use intricate dances to communicate the direction and distance of resources, along with information about their scent and value. Depending on the species, ants may use their chemical “vocabulary” to convey messages such as food, danger, defense, identity, and relocation. Dolphins have even understood novel instructions containing as many as five ordered elements within artificial communication systems capable of producing thousands of different messages.

Of course, communication is about much more than collecting words. Your animal might begin with two meaningful choices and gradually develop a vocabulary of dozens—or even hundreds—of symbols, gestures, scents, sounds, or words. We begin with ideas that matter to your learner and allow their communication to grow naturally. They may surprise you with just how much they can learn!

We want you to feel wonderful about joining Animal Kindergarten! Your membership is protected by a 14-day money-back guarantee. If you decide the membership isn’t the right fit, simply contact us within 14 days of your initial purchase for a refund of your membership fee.

(The guarantee applies to the Animal Kindergarten membership program only. Fees for separately purchased 1:1 consultations are nonrefundable because that time is personally reserved for you. ❤️)

All Animal Kindergarten memberships are continuous auto-renewal payments. You may cancel at any time and will continue to have access through the date you have prepaid.