Babies born during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic\u00a0are heading to preschool and kindergarten, and experts are waiting anxiously to see its impact on the young learners. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Concerns about cognitive and social delays, such as difficulties sharing or following directions, have\u00a0arisen,\u00a0as conflicting studies and educators’ anecdotes\u00a0emerge about 4- and 5-year-olds.<\/p>\n
While devastating consequences were immediately noticeable for older students during the pandemic, it is too early to get a definitive answer on how it affected those born during the chaos, making vigilance from educators a\u00a0necessary\u00a0factor in the upcoming school year, experts stress.<\/p>\n
One study published recently in Infancy looked at data from 330 infants born between October 2016 and August 2021 and found there was little difference between negative effects on infants before and after pandemic onset, rather higher negative effects on infants were more closely associated with factors such as maternal stress.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And stress on caregivers during the pandemic rose significantly with job losses and decreases in socialization, but those effects were different based on family income level. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cKids with families with high socioeconomic backgrounds, they’re actually seeing improvement in these kids’ development, because caregivers might have been home more often than they were before, they might have had more time and attention and support and family meals and reading together, and all those things we know were really important,” said Rahil Briggs, national director of Zero to Three\u2019s HealthySteps program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another study found that the lower the socioeconomic background, \u201cthe more that decrease in kindergarten readiness showed up,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But other studies showed more differences between the youngest learners before and after COVID-19, including a higher risk for social, cognitive, communication, motor and social delays among those born during the height of the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A study\u00a0released in 2024<\/a>\u00a0that examined a cohort of 3.5- to 5.5-year-olds found after the pandemic this age group tested “significantly worse on several measures of false-belief understanding.”<\/p>\n \u201cSo for things to be affecting the kids now, it really has to be something that made a fundamental shift in their development those first couple of years and that can happen. We do know that the first three years of life are super important. What we haven’t had is something that hits us over the head yet beyond anecdotal,\u201d said Koraly P\u00e9rez-Edgar, a professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University.\u00a0<\/p>\n