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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Social interactions in the first months of life are key for babies to learn how to communicate and develop their language skills. Physical contact, touching, smiling, and our first face-to-face “conversations” are the pillars on which we build our understanding of the social world.
Restrictions on social interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic have profoundly affected these early interactions. We interacted less and with fewer people and had to do without some basic aspects of communication, such as physical touch or sharing things.
For children born during the pandemic, it is easy to conclude that their first interactions were so different that it affected their development.
Our team conducted research on language development in Spanish children born during or just before the pandemic. We found that they developed more slowly than children born before.
Vocabulary
In this study, we analyzed the development of both vocabulary and grammatical structure, which means the ability to produce complex sentences. 153 children between the ages of 18 and 31 months participated in this competition. We compared data from two groups that were matched in terms of age and educational levels of parents and who attended similar nursery schools.
The two groups were “pre-epidemic” (PRE) and “post-epidemic” (POST). The PRE group consists of children born and evaluated before the pandemic. The POST cohort consists of children born a few months before or during the pandemic, between October 2019 and December 2020.
Our results showed that children born during the pandemic used fewer feature words, meaning they had smaller vocabularies than those born before it. On the other hand, children born before the pandemic were able to use more complex phrases, with more words and a wider range of structures.
As expected, the average level of children in the prenatal group was about 50 percent. However, the POST group barely reached the 40th percentile in both vocabulary and sentence complexity.
Limited linguistic stimulation
Restrictions during the pandemic meant that children in the POST group experienced limited social relationships, as well as interaction contexts that may have influenced their language development.
In addition, linguistic stimuli influenced both the variety and frequency of social interactions and the use of masks. Masks hinder comprehension and make it difficult to receive visual information when learning a language. Together, these conditions may have slowed language development in this group.
These findings highlight the enormous importance of early social interactions and the distinct influence of context on infant development.
In typical development, children first learn a few words, then gradually increase their vocabulary. They then begin to put two words together, learning how words can be combined to express increasingly complex meanings. This process occurs through diverse and meaningful interactions with others: we learn to speak because people speak to us, and because we can see that what we say has an impact on them.
Risks for the most vulnerable groups
In a natural context, the effects of the pandemic on language development would be expected to be offset over time. However, this situation constituted an additional risk factor for the most vulnerable children, i.e. those who are more at risk of developmental difficulties, either for biological or social reasons.
Studies have shown that, in general, the COVID-19 crisis has severely affected vulnerable groups. Since there is evidence that those born during the pandemic are generally slower to develop, we must not leave behind children who are more likely to develop abnormally. We have an obligation to detect vulnerable situations as soon as possible. This is the only way to avoid “ripple effects” in subsequent development.
If early detection was already crucial, it has now become essential in the wake of the pandemic. Although the COVID-19 crisis may seem like a thing of the past, its effects on the mental health of the population in general, and on children’s development in particular, remain a reality that we cannot, and should not, ignore.
The global pandemic has brought about numerous changes to the way we live, including the way children are being raised. With many families spending more time at home during lockdown, concerns are being raised about the impact this may have on children’s language development. Research suggests that children born or raised during lockdown are exhibiting slower language skill development compared to their peers from before the pandemic. This phenomenon has sparked a growing interest in understanding how the current circumstances are shaping the early development of children’s language abilities. In this essay, we will explore the potential reasons behind this trend and discuss the implications for the future language development of children living through these unprecedented times.