Posted on 12/01/2021 4:31:34 PM PST by Fractal Trader
COVID rules are being blamed for a disturbing 23 percent fall in young children’s development and cognitive test results.
Social distancing measures including face masks are suspected of causing young children’s development to have drop by up to 23 per cent during the COVID pandemic, according to a new study.
Brown University scientists Sean CL Deoni, Jennifer Beauchemin, Alexandra Volpe, and Viren D’Sa, penned the review, in conjunction with the global consulting firm Resonance, collecting data from 1,600 children – and their caregivers – who have been enrolled in the study between the ages of 0 and 5 on a rolling basis.
The probe analyzed the cognitive development of the youngsters through infancy, childhood and adolescence, and looked at how average development scores in three key areas had been affected during the COVID era – with shocking results.
In the study, researchers first analyzed 1,070 assessments administered on 605 kids prior to March 2020, when COVID lockdowns and masking began.
Then, a further 154 assessments from 118 kids administered between March 2020 and June 2021, during the height of the pandemic, were carried out.
Meanwhile, 39 children born in 2018 and 2019 were analyzed over the course of the pandemic, into 2021.
The team then carried out checks on three widely accepted measures of child development – the early learning composite (ELC), verbal development quotient (VDQ), and non-verbal development quotient (NVDQ).
A child’s early learning composite is derived from their fine motor, visual reception, receptive, and expressive language scales, and is the early years equivalent to an IQ score.
The two development quotients measures how well a child is maturing in their language skills and other skills as compared with a sample of youngsters their own age.
Results showed the early learning composite mean result dropped by a whopping 23 per cent, from a high of just under 100 in 2019, to around 80 in 2020, and finally 77 in 2021.
Meanwhile, the verbal development quotient also dropped dramatically, from an average of 100 in 2018 to just below 90 in 2020, and around 70 in 2021.
The non-verbal development quotient also experienced a similar dip, from a mean score of around 105 in 2019, to 100 in 2020 and around 80 in 2021.
The study concluded that ‘children born during the pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance compared to children born pre-pandemic.’
‘In addition,’ the report adds, ‘masks worn in public settings and in school or daycare settings may impact a range of early developing skills, such as attachment, facial processing, and socioemotional processing.’
The authors said that boys from poor backgrounds were most at risk of a drop in cognitive testing scores, with richer parents better able to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.
They explained: ‘Comparing yearly mean scores since 2011, controlling for age, gender, demographic, and socioeconomic indicators, we find striking evidence of declining overall cognitive functioning in children beginning in 2020 and continuing through 2021.
‘We find that males appear significantly more impacted than females, and that higher socioeconomic status (SES, as measured by maternal education) helps buffer against this negative impact.
‘On a more individual level, we examined longitudinal pre and during-pandemic trends in the same children from 2018 to 2021, again finding declines in ability in 2020 and 2021.’
The study’s findings come as parents across the globe grapple with the idea that wearing masks may interfere with the natural learning experiences and communication skills of their young children.
‘There are sensitive periods in early childhood development in which language development and emotional development are really rapidly developing for the first few years of life,’ Ashley Ruba, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Child Emotion Lab, told CNN in August.
The doctor added that developing children need to see others’ subtle verbal or facial cues to accurately discern how someone is feeling – a skill that proves paramount as the youngster age.
What’s more, not being able to see someone’s face also inhibits kids from picking up whether something or a situation is safe or dangerous, Ruba further asserted.
With that said, masks may not be thing spurring the drastic reduction in kids’ cognitive abilities, the study states, adding that there are likely a range of pandemic-related factors that can be blamed for the dip – specifically the lack of social interactions between the still-developing youths.
That came after schools were closed for in-person learning, with many experts blaming the lack of social contact for a boom in mental health issues among children, and some areas seeing a spike in youth suicides.
COVID infections tend to be harmless for younger children, with just 731 confirmed COVID deaths recorded for youngsters aged between 0 and 18 from March 2020 to November 24 2021, according to CDC figures.
That has seen many parents call for most restrictions to be lifted for children, particularly as children aged five and up can now get vaccinated.
Those who want kids to remain masked say there’s no way of knowing if a perfectly healthy child may suffer a severe COVID infection. They also highlight how children may not fall seriously-ill, but could still pass the infection onto an adult such as a parent, grandparent or teacher who could suffer serious or even deadly symptoms.
‘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.’
It adds: ‘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 are 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, particularity those in lower income families.’
I know most public education is held in poor repute by FR, but distance learning was much worse than in person learning, at least for my 5 grandchildren who are in school.
The long term effects of sustained and repeated oxygen deprivation will show up in many different ways during a child’s development. This should not be a huge surprise.
Furthermore I do not think these kids should be getting the shot.
Me either. And masks on kids — that’s just plain silly.
IMHO, this is an intended effect!
Don’t put your kids in public school and don’t mask them. Problem solved.
This is fine with the RATs since they seek to enslave these children. If the kids can’t make it in life then they will have to be dependent on the gov’t.
Bkmk
The cure is worse than the disease.
The Islamic attack on September 11th, did horrible damage to the children, getting them to accept anything in the name of safety. This Covid bs is doubling down on the damage.
I am amazed the kids still had enough performance to drop 23% lower.
Of course not being able to see people’s faces, not being able hear speech clearly or be heard by others, not being able to get together with other children and play with toys, has damaged young children’s development. It’s all insane.
Tax-chick wrote:
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Of course not being able to see people’s faces, not being able hear speech clearly or be heard by others, not being able to get together with other children and play with toys, has damaged young children’s development. It’s all insane.
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Any info from those studies about the impact on hearing disabled kids?
Everything that has been reported says it’s very harmful.
You think professional educators don’t know this? They study at teaching school for 5 years. They take classes in development and stuff. They know babies watch adults’ mouths to learn how to talk. Take that away and kids don’t learn to talk. Then when they get to school they should be at a lower level which will look really good after they get to the general low level that unmasked students have historically gotten to. What better way to improve learning than to start lower? Just like poverty. Make people poor then give them welfare and they think they hit the big time.
I haven’t seen any.
My friend’s son has Autism (Lvl. 2), and has extreme difficulty communicating. He relies on echolalia most of the time, and the distance learning has had a huge impact. In some ways he did better because he was home (able to concentrate on the school work), but in others he didn’t do well (even more difficulty socializing now).
I’ve come into contact with some adults who were hearing disabled, and they stated that life has become so much more difficult.
Thst friend of mine is a 5th grade teacher (not a Leftist) and works in a wealthy district. She said most of the kids did well remotely, but there were a few who didn’t bother logging in. They tended to be not so well off financially.
Talk about class warfare, amirite?
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