Pandemic babies show increased occurrence of delayed development

A researcher conducts a development screening test on a young boy. [CENTER FOR CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND DISABILITY AT EWHA WOMANS UNIVERSITY]

In a recent screening test, a 42-month-old boy from Seoul was found to have delayed language development.

"I just thought he was a little slow to start speaking," the mother of the boy said. "But I never imagined that he had developmental delays."

The boy had been communicating using words, though not in sentences. He was also unable to tell the names of his classmates at a daycare center.

“I just figured he was too young to have an interest in his friends and didn't think it was a big deal that he could not remember their names,” the mother said. “But I was told that his social skills are weaker than other children of the same age.

“Because we live with elderly grandparents, we could not arrange many playdates for our boy, fearing that the family would be infected by the Covid-19,” she said.

“And I also did not have many opportunities to see the developmental progress of other children, so it was hard to be able to make a comparison and notice my boy’s lack of progress.”

Another mother of a 40-month-old boy said she recently started language therapy for her child. “When he turned two years old, I was worried that he was not meeting his speech milestones,” she said.

“After the development screening test, the outcome showed that he was suspected of having some developmental delays, so we started therapy.”

She said her toddler’s life during the pandemic was significantly different from that of his older brother when he was around the same age. “Come to think of it, my first boy went to the playground a lot and enjoyed outdoor activities when he was around this age,” she said.

“But the younger one could not go to the daycare center due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He mainly stayed at home.”

She said it was hard to offer various experiences when the child was just staying home. The boy would also often want the mother’s help rather than trying to do new things on his own. “He also had few chances to practice how to dress, wash his hands and eat on his own,” she said.

The impact of the three-year-long pandemic on the development of infants and toddlers is becoming more clear. The Center for Child Development and Disability at Ewha Womans University conducted development screening tests at 63 daycare centers in Seoul's Mapo and Seodaemun districts for three months from July.

A group of 545 two-year-old children were tested, and 100 kids, or 18.34 percent of them, were suspected of having development delays.

The outcome stood in stark contrast from the levels of pre-pandemic surveys. According to the statistics of the National Health Insurance Service’s 2019 development screening of infants and toddlers, just 7.4 percent of the subjects required further evaluations.

“The children who were asked to undergo further evaluations are equivalent to the children suspected of having development delays in our center’s latest test,” said Kim Sun-kyung, vice director of the Center for Child Development and Disability of Ewha Womans University.

“The two tests used different formats, so it cannot be a direct comparison, but the 18 percent in our latest test is a figure that is extraordinary.”

Different from ordinary development tests in which parents offer answers, researchers from the Center for Child Development and Disability visited the daycare centers and conducted observational surveys in person. Four areas — individual and social skills, fine motor skills, language skills and gross motor skills — were tested, according to Kim.

Most of the children suspected of having developmental delays tested as lacking in language and individual and social skills. Of the 100 children who were suspected of having development delays, 82 percent failed to meet language development milestones, while 77 percent were behind on individual and social milestones.

“Language skills develop when toddlers communicate with peers and adults,” Kim said. “But during the pandemic, kids had few exchanges with their peer groups as they were kept home rather than sent to daycare centers,” Kim said.

“They also had few chances to have various play experiences. Because people wear face masks, toddlers have a hard time understanding facial expressions. As we conducted our tests, we saw more and more children were afraid of strangers.”

Kim said many researchers abroad, also, are publishing studies that pandemic babies are increasingly showing development delays.

In January, Nature magazine issued an article on the pandemic generation. In the article, titled “The COVID generation: how is the pandemic affecting kids’ brains?” the magazine discussed numerous child development research projects conducted around the world including the United States and England. In short, it said the children’s language, behavioral and cognitive developments have been delayed.

“As reported in the Nature article, experts believe that various factors caused by the pandemic such as face mask wearing, parents’ depression and social distancing measures affected the brain development of children,” said Prof. Shin Eui-jin, a pediatric psychiatrist at Severance Hospital in Seoul.

“Brain development until the age of three years is largely about social and emotional functions,” she said. “When children have emotional exchanges with parents and others that are of sufficient quality and quantity, they can develop empathy and the ability to control their emotions. In other words, children who were infants and toddlers during the pandemic lack the ability to control themselves and are easily agitated.”

Local governments in Korea recently started conducting their own development evaluations of children to access the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic. The Seongnam City Government started a development evaluation with 1,500 children in March. Those younger than 42 months are being evaluated.

As of late last month, 1,096 kids were evaluated, and 18 percent showed delays in language skills while 11 percent were lacking in motor skills. According to the study, 10 percent failed to meet behavioral development milestones such as the expression of basic desires.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said it has been cooperating with the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry since April to conduct surveys on a sample group of 600 children.

But many experts said a more systemic study with a nationwide sample group is necessary.

“The infancy and toddler stages of development are a crucial time when cognitive and language skills are developed explosively,” said Prof. Hong Eun-joo of Eulji University’s department of early childhood education, who had participated in the Seongnam city research. “A nationwide study must be conducted to prepare a policy to offer help to children, without any omission.”

Early intervention and customized support are also important. “Currently, the government is offering support for school-aged children falling behind in their academics and who have dyslexia,” said Kim of the Center for Child Development and Disability of Ewha Womans University. “But there is no program for infants and toddlers with developmental delays.

“Help for school-age children is important, but offering help to younger children suspected of having delayed development is more important,” Kim said. “The government-sponsored vouchers for those with developmental delays are given to children with disabilities, but those who are only suspected of having delayed development or children with borderline intelligence are not covered by the program.”

Prof. Shin of Severance Hospital said parents may not notice their children’s delayed development. “You don’t see any visible symptoms such as bleeding or fever, so the parents may not notice it. But when they find out later, it is too late,” she said. “It is incredibly important that local and central governments offer early evaluation and intervention for children suspected of having developmental delays through basic research.”

BY EO HWAN-HEE, SER MYO-JA [kjdnational@joongang.co.kr]