The COVID-catastrophe shocked the world two years ago, leaving behind a myriad of questions. With uncertainty everywhere, a significant concern for families was the effect of the virus on the development of children’s brains. Prior knowledge of viruses such as Zika (which was known to cause congenital disabilities) meant that post this surge, paediatricians were anxiously on the lookout for problems.
After thorough research and countless nights of analysis, Dani Dumitriu, a paediatrician at Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York City, noted that – on average – pandemic-born babies scored lower on skills and communications tests as compared to pre-pandemic born babies. After further research, she concluded that these differences had little to do with whether the mother was infected but something to do with the environment of the pandemic itself.
Researchers testing babies’ motor skills soon realised the significant dip in performance when compared to pre-pandemic infants too. One of the possibilities for such an occurrence was hypothesised to be the lack of peer interaction and playtime due to the pandemic’s restrictions. Researchers suspect that babies and toddlers do not get enough time to develop their motor skills as they are not going to playgrounds or interacting with other children.
Another possible reason for this lapse could be due to protective face masks. The overlying question is whether masks (which hide facial features imperative for non-verbal communication) could hamper children’s abilities to communicate and pick up on non-verbal communication cues and skills. Edward Tronik conducted an experiment to measure the extent to which masks interfered with communication. In this experiment, parents recorded interactions with their babies before and after wearing a mask and noted how their children responded. Through this experiment, he concluded that while masks block a channel of communication, there are several other indicators such as tone, body language, and eye expressions that convey meaning to children. He concluded that, for the most part, kids were able to infer cues despite face masks accurately.
All in all, it comes down to the nature versus nurture debate, and we have observed time and again that children are a result of their environment. It is in such situations where we can further argue this long-standing debate and how critical environmental stimulation is for children in order to develop normally and naturally.
