COVID rules are blamed for 23% dive in young children’s development. Face Masks may be part of the problem, a Brown study shows.
In this work, we provide early evidence suggestive of significant reductions in attained cognitive function and performance in children born over the past 18 months during the pandemic. ~ Brown University study
Face masks and other social distancing measures may in fact impede children’s development, a new study by Brown University has found.
The study analyzed the cognitive development of youngsters through infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Researchers first analyzed 1,070 assessments administered on 605 kids prior to March 2020, when COVID lockdowns and masking began.
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A further 154 assessments from 118 kids administered between March 2020 and June 2021, during the height of the pandemic, were then carried out.
Thirty-nine children born in 2018 and 2019 were analyzed over the course of the pandemic, into 2021.
A 23% DROP IN SCORES
The report found that there was a 23 percent drop in scores measuring kids’ intelligence quotients since the start of the pandemic.
The study also found similar dips in the same span in regards to developing children’s ability to communicate, both verbally and through subtle facial cues.
Social distancing measures including face masks are suspected of causing young children’s development to have dropped by up to 23 percent during the COVID pandemic, according to a new study.
Brown University scientists Sean CL Deoni, Jennifer Beauchemin, Alexandra Volpe, and Viren D’Sa reviewed the data.
CONCLUSION
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered the child health landscape, with pregnant mothers and individuals, and children living in a strikingly different economic, psychosocial, and educational environment than what was present just 18 months ago. Against this environmental backdrop, unanswered questions remain regarding the impact of the work-from-home, shelter-in-place, and other public health policies that have limited social interaction and typical childhood experiences on early child neurodevelopment.
In this work, we provide early evidence suggestive of significant reductions in attained cognitive function and performance in children born over the past 18 months during the pandemic. While socioeconomic factors appear to mitigate against the negative consequences of the pandemic, the primary factors underlying our observed trends remain unknown. Understanding these factors is critical to helping ensure affected children rebound as the pandemic winds down and they re-enter daycares and schools; as well as implementing additional public health and educational policies that address the most affected of children, particularly those in lower-income families.
