Children’s Language, Development and Covid19: An Emerging Research

Steven Blaustein PhD, CCC, BCS-CL
Board Certified Specialist- Child Language and Associate Professor Touro University
The Meeting House - Advisory Board Member

Since its inception in 2008 The Meeting House,  through its programs, activities and skilled, dedicated professionals, has provided a resource for social emotional learning and worked to reinforce  the  core values of community and connection. The Meeting House has created and maintains a safe and supportive place where our children can learn and grow.

The Covid19 pandemic resulted in a worldwide disruption of many, if not most,  of the basic day to day routines and behaviors we often take for granted. Certainly, the fundamental concepts of community and connection were shattered in an unprecedented manner. Through quarantine, separation, shutting down schools, businesses and institutions, mandated lock downs  and covering our faces with masks, the fundamental requisites needed for face to face socialization  and connection were disrupted in  unprecedented ways. Smiles, frowns, expressions of joy and tears of sadness were hidden behind masks and face shields that we clung  to in order to preserve our lives.

As we continue to emerge from the life altering impacts of  Covid19, we are seeing their effects, both individually and as a society, that have changed us all. As a speech language pathologist with a specialty in child language and social skills I am witnessing the impact of the quarantine on young children. Initially, I heard the concerns and questions from parents and caregivers regarding developmental lags in their children's language, play and social skills. Later, as schools reopened I began to hear many stories and observations anecdotally from teachers, school directors, principals, therapists and related child care professionals about changes that were being observed  in these “Covid Kids'' when compared to peer groups attending preschools, programs and being  seen prior to the pandemic. We are now seeing a rapidly emerging interdisciplinary research literature objectively investigating the effects of the pandemic’s effects on various aspects of  child development. I would like to share some of what we are learning and beginning to  analyze about how our children and  our families were impacted by the changes in our routines created by Covid19.  The current research presented will be just the tip of the iceberg in looking at how powerful COVID19 was on  society.

Researchers are looking into the impact of Covid19 on social and emotional skills of children. Winnie et al (2022) investigated  the characteristics of children aged 2 through 12 who were perhaps “more susceptible” to being negatively impacted by Covid19. Results of  online questionnaires revealed that children with mental health issues, chronic and acute health issues and special education needs were more vulnerable and sensitive to the negative impacts of Covid19. Children with hearing loss and those receiving remedial services were also more proportionately negatively impacted. It is not surprising to note that  additional findings revealed that children who spent extended time on electronic devices were also more negatively affected. The effects of technology, screen time and texting were the subject of a symposium sponsored by the Meeting House years before we heard of COVID19.

Numerous additional peer reviewed articles confirmed the occurrence of higher incidences of anxiety, depression, behavioral problems and stress in children following the Covid19 quarantine. These objective studies, primarily conducted through  large numbers of questionnaires highlight an  increased number of identifiable stressors during the pandemic. Many of these were tied to social and financial difficulties. Results of these stressors,  including disruptions in sleep and physical activity negatively impacted routines of children and families. This is believed to have  had an overall negative ramification on general social emotional well-being.

A  large study of 3,392 Italian children between the ages of 1 to 10 by Picca et al (2021) looked at the effects of Covid19. Results identified  an increase in irritability, sleep and dietary changes in children studied. Results also indicated difficulties with attention and a marked overuse of digital technology. It is encouraging to note that this study also found an improvement in family relationships.  Studies have shown that children spent more time on electronic devices, missed greater numbers of school days, missed friends, were more bored and less creative. How could  changes such as these, influencing  the roots of our children’s world, not result in both overt and hidden changes in emotions, feelings, language and behavior to varying degrees depending on individual age, circumstance and experiences. Negative behaviors noted during the lockdown included aggression, hyperactivity, overeating and frequent crying. The results of distance learning remain questionable and continue to be targeted in emerging research.

Specifically In looking at children's language and related skills, Patel et al confirmed  how children's peers and teachers play a large role in language development. They looked at phonemic awareness in first graders. A significant decrease in  phonemic awareness skills was exhibited in children studied and was attributed  to the lack of sufficient student-teacher interactions. Kartushina et al (2022) looked at vocabulary development in children from 8 to 36 months from 13 countries speaking 12 languages. Research  found that children whose caregivers  read to them more and had less screen exposure demonstrated larger gains in vocabulary development. It was believed that many children actually gained more words than hypothesized during Covid19 because caregivers were more aware of the children's vocabulary and provided more intense child caregiver interactions over the lockdown. In an interesting study conducted by LENA and Brown University (2022), as part of ongoing research, it was  found that babies, born 9 months into COVID19 used fewer prelinguistic vocalizations  and demonstrated fewer conversational turns with caregivers analyzed from a database of 3000 children. Numerous researchers are concluding that the environmental changes as a result of COVID19 has had a detrimental effect on children’s language development. Children born during Covid-19 are experiencing developmental delays including the area of language (Snyder et al., 2022; Byrne et al, 2021).

 There are many things we are learning as a result of the worldwide pandemic. Joni Mitchell , in one of her iconic songs said “you don't know what you got til its gone.”   The important benefits of social interactions, opportunities for peer engagements and play, regular routines face to face contact, recognizing facial expressions,  school, the role of teachers, and after school activities and friendships, all combine and interact over time to promote overall development, language acquisition,  emotional intelligence and social emotional well-being.  Components, long  recognized, reinforced and supported by the Meeting House are  shown to be critical factors in our children's and our own well-being. Disruptions and interruptions to  very basic human interactions, often taken for granted, are now being objectively shown to have caused a varied and wide array of negative impacts on children’s development.Parental stress, isolation, social distancing, disrupted regular in-person school attendance, and increased screen time are all being shown to  have negatively impacted children's development including language and behavior. We have much to learn regarding the long lasting impacts of Covid19 but recognizing their effects is an important first step  in the process. Having the Meeting House to continue to support our children and families is now more critical than ever.

Covid19 Reference List:

Ali Awan, H., Najmuddin Diwan, M., Aamir, A., Ali, M., Di Giannantonio, M., Ullah, I. & De Berardis, D. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 and the Brain: What Do We Know about the Causality of ‘Cognitive COVID? Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10(15), 3441.

Araújo, L. A. D., Veloso, C. F., Souza, M. D. C., Azevedo, J. M. C. D., & Tarro, G. (2021). The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child growth and development: a systematic review. Jornal de Pediatria, 97, 369-377.

Bourion-Bédès, S., Rousseau, H., Batt, M., Tarquinio, P., Lebreuilly, R., Sorsana, C., ... & Baumann, C. (2022). The effects of living and learning conditions on the health-related quality of life of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 lockdown in the French Grand Est region. BMC public health, 22(1), 1-10.

Borbás, R., Fehlbaum, L. V., Dimanova, P., Negri, A., Arudchelvam, J., Schnider, C. B., & Raschle, N. M. (2021). Mental well-being during the first months of Covid-19 in adults and children: behavioral evidence and neural precursors. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-14.

Byrne S, Sledge H, Franklin R, Boland F, Murray D M, Hourihane J (2022) Social communication skill attainment in babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic: a birth cohort study Archives of Disease in Childhood Published Online First: 11 October 2022. doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2021-323441

Censi, L., Ruggeri, S., Galfo, M., Buonocore, P., & Roccaldo, R. (2022). Eating behavior, physical activity and lifestyle of Italian children during lockdown for COVID-19. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 73(1), 93-105.

Coskun, K., & Kara, C. (2022). Impact of school closure due to COVID-19 on phonemic awareness of first-grade primary school children. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 9(1)https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01218-0

Darmiyanti, A., Supriadi, O., & Nurlaeli, A. (2021, June 25). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on language and Social Development for early childhood children age 4-6 years in Karawang District. Indonesian Journal of Early Childhood Education Studies. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/ijeces/article/view/46582 

Davies, C., Hendry, A., Gibson, S. P., Gliga, T., McGillion, M., & Gonzalez‐Gomez, N. (2021). Early childhood education and care (ECEC) during COVID 19 boosts growth in language and executive function. Infant and child development, 30(4), E2241.

Ghosh, R., Dubey, M. J., Chatterjee, S., & Dubey, S. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on children: special focus on the psychosocial aspect. Minerva pediatrica, 72(3), 226-235.

Gilbert, A. S., Schmidt, L., Beck, A., Kepper, M. M., Mazzucca, S., & Eyler, A. (2021). Associations of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with child mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC public health, 21(1), 1-12.

Kartushina, N., Mani, N., Aktan-Erciyes, A., Alaslani, K., Aldrich, N. J., Almohammadi, A., et al. (2022). COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition: Associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains. Language Development Research, 2, 1-36. doi:10.34842/abym-xv34.

Kearney, A., Searl, J., Erickson-DiRenzo, E., & Doyle, P. C. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on speech-language pathologists engaged in clinical practices with elevated coronavirus transmission risk. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30(4), 1673-1685.

Kumar, V., Chawla, N., Gupta, S., & Aanad, J. (2020). Children Coping with stress during lockdown. International Journal of Current Research and Review, 12(18), 167-172.

McKegney, C. C. (2021). Understanding child development in the assessment of stress in children amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Pediatric Nursing, 47(1), 48-51. Moore, S. A., Faulkner, G., Rhodes, R. E., Brussoni, M., Chulak-Bozzer, T., Ferguson, L.

J., ... & Tremblay, M. S. (2020). Impact of the COVID-19 virus outbreak on movement and play behaviors of Canadian children and youth: a national survey. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 17(1), 1-11.

Nkodila, A. N., Mbendi, C. N. L., Tukadila, H. A. K., Managa, G. L., Lukanu, P. N., & Longo, B. M. (2021). Psychological Consequence of the Corona Virus Disease

Pandemic in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Population-Based Cross-Sectional Survey. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 14, 2163.

Paterson, D. C., Ramage, K., Moore, S. A., Riazi, N., Tremblay, M. S., & Faulkner, G. (2021). Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the movement behaviors of children and youth: A scoping review of evidence after the first year. Journal of sport and health science.

Picca, M., Manzoni, P., Milani, G. P., Mantovani, S., Cravidi, C., Mariani, D., ... & Agostoni, C. (2021). Distance learning, technological devices, lifestyle and behavior of children and their family during the COVID-19 lockdown in Lombardy: a survey. Italian Journal of Pediatrics, 47(1), 1-6.

Purtell, K. M., Ansari, A., Yang, Q., & Bartholomew, C. P. (2021, March). The Role of Preschool Peers in Children's Language Development. In Seminars in Speech and Language (Vol. 42, No. 02, pp. 088-100). Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc..

Russell, B. S., Tomkunas, A. J., Hutchison, M., Tambling, R. R., & Horton, A. L. (2022). The Protective Role of Parent Resilience on Mental Health and the Parent–Child Relationship during COVID-19. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 53(1), 183-196.

Scapaticci, S., Neri, C. R., Marseglia, G. L., Staiano, A., Chiarelli, F., & Verduci, E. (2022). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lifestyle behaviors in children and adolescents: an international overview. Italian Journal of Pediatrics, 48(1), 1-17.

Scott R. Schroeder & Peiyao Chen (2021) Bilingualism and COVID-19: using a second language during a health crisis, Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 14:1,20-30, DOI: 10.1080/17538068.2020.1864611

Snyder, K., Chaudhary, P., Pereira, A., Masuda, K., Niski, J., & Dinkel, D. (2022). Early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on promotion of infant activity, strength and communication:

A qualitative exploration. Acta Psychologica, 222, 103480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103480

Sun, J., Singletary, B., Jiang, H., Justice, L. M., Lin, T., & Purtell, K. M. (2022). Child behavior problems during COVID-19: Associations with parent distress and child social-emotional skills. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 78, 101375.

Tambling, R. R., Tomkunas, A. J., Russell, B. S., Horton, A. L., & Hutchison, M. (2021). Thematic analysis of parent–child conversations about covid-19:“playing it safe”. Journal of child and family studies, 30(2), 325-337.

Taylor, S., Landry, C. A., Paluszek, M. M., Fergus, T. A., McKay, D., & Asmundson, G. J. (2020). Development and initial validation of the COVID Stress Scales. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 72, 102232.

Tso, W.W.Y., Wong, R.S., Tung, K.T.S. et al. Vulnerability and resilience in children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 31, 161–176 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01680-8

Yayci, L., & Kendirci, A. (2021). Determination of Educational/Academic and Some Social Behavioral Trends of Elementary School Students in Turkey during Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Days. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching, 8(1), 358-380.