Culture Post: Pandemic Set Kindergarteners Back Developmentally

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

The COVID-19 pandemic set kindergarteners’ development back in several ways, a new study says.

Post-pandemic kindergarten students on average scored significantly lower in language and thinking skills, social competence, and communication and general knowledge, when compared to pre-pandemic kids, researchers reported in JAMA Pediatrics.

“The domains of language and cognitive development and communication and general knowledge were most severely affected, the likely result of school closures and virtual learning environments necessitated by COVID-19 public health measures,” a team led by Judith Perrigo, an assistant professor of social welfare with the UCLA School of Public Affairs, wrote.

“These measures also limited children’s usual social opportunities with peers and adults who are not caregivers, which may explain the observed slight decrease in social competence,” researchers added.

But the pandemic might have benefitted young children in other ways, with kindergarteners’ emotional maturity and resilience growing during lockdown, results show.

For the new study, researchers analyzed early development scores for more than 475,000 U.S. kindergarten students, comparing pre-pandemic scores from 2018 to 2020 against scores during the post-pandemic era of 2021 to 2023.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/pandemic-set-kindergarteners-back-developmentally

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