Pandemic Babies and Speech

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My fifteen month old isn’t saying anything yet. She’s been in daycare this whole time. I didn’t think there was anything wrong until I met another 15 month old in the park who was saying “swing”, “doggie”, “ball”, “turtle”, “more”,

Should I get an evaluation? Now I’m freaked!!!

No harm in contacting early intervention.

+1 we contacted EI at 16 months when DD wasn't talking. In her case she had been at home with us for 5 months due to pandemic daycare closure. She started back at daycare at 17.months and started EI services around the same time. Her language exploded and she graduated from EI around 22-23 months as she was already using two word phrases. She is 2.5 yo now and her verbal skills are slightly advanced for her age. I don't know if EI, daycare or just time made the difference, but we don't regret EI.

So, no need to panic. Tons of kids start talking late and are fine, but EI is a great resource that can be very helpful in such cases.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't panic at 15 months (I'm the one w/ the 17 month old who doesn't have any words yet). When we went in for our 15 month evaluation, the pediatrician wanted to wait until 18 months to reassess. I went ahead and made an appt for a speech eval on my own, without a referral.

[Anonymous]

My daughter was born in Sept 2019 and was late talking (first word at 18 months but caught up rapidly). She is now speaking in 3-5 word sentences at home regularly. However, we started her in a 5 day a week masked half day preschool in Sept and they say she doesn't speak there unless she's in free play and narrating. The teacher seemed really surprised when I said there's no issue at home. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into selective mutism but she will speak to grandparents on Skype so idk. I for sure think the masks play a huge role in it and I've expressed that to the teacher. Once omicron passes I'm considering asking if the director if they would consider going mask optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter was born in Sept 2019 and was late talking (first word at 18 months but caught up rapidly). She is now speaking in 3-5 word sentences at home regularly. However, we started her in a 5 day a week masked half day preschool in Sept and they say she doesn't speak there unless she's in free play and narrating. The teacher seemed really surprised when I said there's no issue at home. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into selective mutism but she will speak to grandparents on Skype so idk. I for sure think the masks play a huge role in it and I've expressed that to the teacher. Once omicron passes I'm considering asking if the director if they would consider going mask optional.

Going through treatment for selective mutism in my 2.5 yo now. I strongly recommend SM university by Kurtz psychology. Free videos that teach you strategies that could help. And if it"s not SM, they won't hurt. I wish I had seen them sooner. If the teachers are concerned, you should be proactive to try to find ways to make your child more comfortable. SM is very impairing and I wish I had acted much sooner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter was born in Sept 2019 and was late talking (first word at 18 months but caught up rapidly). She is now speaking in 3-5 word sentences at home regularly. However, we started her in a 5 day a week masked half day preschool in Sept and they say she doesn't speak there unless she's in free play and narrating. The teacher seemed really surprised when I said there's no issue at home. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into selective mutism but she will speak to grandparents on Skype so idk. I for sure think the masks play a huge role in it and I've expressed that to the teacher. Once omicron passes I'm considering asking if the director if they would consider going mask optional.

There are clear masks that my older child’s SPL uses. There’s no need to ask providers to not wear a mask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter was born in Sept 2019 and was late talking (first word at 18 months but caught up rapidly). She is now speaking in 3-5 word sentences at home regularly. However, we started her in a 5 day a week masked half day preschool in Sept and they say she doesn't speak there unless she's in free play and narrating. The teacher seemed really surprised when I said there's no issue at home. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into selective mutism but she will speak to grandparents on Skype so idk. I for sure think the masks play a huge role in it and I've expressed that to the teacher. Once omicron passes I'm considering asking if the director if they would consider going mask optional.

There are clear masks that my older child’s SPL uses. There’s no need to ask providers to not wear a mask.

I think PP meant masks optional for the kids, nowhere did they suggest asking providers not to wear a mask.

[Anonymous]

For every person that says that their kid is speech delayed because of COVID, there is at least one or more that has not seen a speech delay. My son was born 3 years before COVID and was speech delayed. My daughter was born in March 20202 and has never been to daycare. She started putting two words together at 15 months and now has back and forth conversations with people at 21 months.

Remember that one reason you might be seeing an uptick in speech delays is because a lot of parents are working from home so there is a lot more flexibility to be able to take kids to evaluations and appointments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For every person that says that their kid is speech delayed because of COVID, there is at least one or more that has not seen a speech delay. My son was born 3 years before COVID and was speech delayed. My daughter was born in March 20202 and has never been to daycare. She started putting two words together at 15 months and now has back and forth conversations with people at 21 months.

Remember that one reason you might be seeing an uptick in speech delays is because a lot of parents are working from home so there is a lot more flexibility to be able to take kids to evaluations and appointments.

So, your dd was never in daycare and presumably you don't wear masks at home so...what is your point?

[Anonymous]

For those who are interested in science and don't have some bizarrely aggressive beef with Emily Oster, this section of her blog post on kids and masking is helpful. I'm still stunned that the CDC has been so determined in recommending masking of young children who take masks off half the day. It seems like the worst of both worlds - no real benefit in preventing transmission of Covid, and lots of potential harms.

Stepping back: the concerns here stem from the observation that the bottom half of the face is important for reading emotions, learning to speak, and learning to read. The theory behind this is compelling.

In the study of socioemotional development, the idea of facial expressions conveying emotions goes back to Charles Darwin (in one of his lesser-known books, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals). As adults, it should be obvious from our own experience that we use facial expressions to understand the emotions of others.

This is a skill that develops over childhood (see, e.g., this paper on how kids get better at reading emotions from faces between the ages of 3 and 11). Kids differ in the speed at which they develop this ability; there is literature on how children’s reading of facial expressions correlates with their social skills. This starts early: Infants respond to faces, rapidly learning to distinguish between happy, sad, and other emotions, and can distinguish their mom’s face from others within a short period.

There is also a potential role for facial expressions in language development. Watching how mouths move is part of learning to speak (see, e.g., this paper). And when kids need help with speech issues, being able to observe the movement of their mouth and the mouths of others in pronouncing letters is crucial.

A final argument relates to hearing. There is direct evidence that masks make it difficult to hear the speaker, and that this may be exacerbated for kids in loud classrooms. It stands to some logic that if you are trying to teach a young child to read — or, really, do anything — it is valuable for them to be able to hear you. And social interactions are better if kids can hear each other and be heard by teachers.

Putting all this together, it is reasonable to think that some aspects of learning or social skills may be impacted by masks, and indeed others have argued this. But this isn’t quite the same as direct evidence that masking matters, and it doesn’t tell us about magnitudes. Maybe seeing half a face is almost as good as a whole face. The impacts of hearing on learning may be small.

Large-scale evidence on the particular question of masking in schools and development is lacking and is unlikely to ever appear. One could imagine exploiting differences across schools in mask policies to look at differences in learning outcomes, but you would rapidly realize in doing so that too many other things vary across these schools. There will never be anything convincingly causal.

What we can see is a bit of lab-based evidence on masks directly, especially on emotion-reading. There is, for example, this paper showing that children performed worse on a face-perception test when masks were involved versus without. There’s also this paper — co-authored by a researcher and a 9-year-old — which showed that children had trouble reading emotions from masked faces. Or this one, which showed that masks reduced kids’ ability to read emotions from pictures (though notably, not more than sunglasses).

This type of in-lab analysis for studying language development or learning evolution is less feasible, and there is therefore little we can say directly.

In the end, what we arrive at is a lot of theoretical reasons to think that masking could be somewhat detrimental to social learning and intellectual progress, with the evidence for the former being somewhat stronger. It is nearly impossible to be precise about magnitudes.

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/kids-and-masks

[Anonymous]

I heard the bigger issue is core strength and fine motor skills. Preschoolers back in school are falling out of the little chairs and are having trouble holding a pencil/crayon. All that screen time has done more damage than a mask and speech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard the bigger issue is core strength and fine motor skills. Preschoolers back in school are falling out of the little chairs and are having trouble holding a pencil/crayon. All that screen time has done more damage than a mask and speech.

Well if you say so, you're right, any parent who is concerned probably caused their own kid's issues

[Anonymous]

My baby was born May 2020 and by her 18 month appointment said maybe 4 words. She started daycare in August. Because she is in a bilingual home the pediatrician said this could be normal but to wait 2-3 months to see if there is any progress. I have to say in the last month there has been some progress where she has learned 3 additional words that she uses in the correct way in just a month. She still doesn’t say mama but will say dada.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

You seem to know nothing about speech development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My baby was born May 2020 and by her 18 month appointment said maybe 4 words. She started daycare in August. Because she is in a bilingual home the pediatrician said this could be normal but to wait 2-3 months to see if there is any progress. I have to say in the last month there has been some progress where she has learned 3 additional words that she uses in the correct way in just a month. She still doesn’t say mama but will say dada.

Your child is falling further behind in her speech development. How can she learn to speak from daycare workers who keep their mouths covered?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

You seem to know nothing about speech development.

Do enlighten us.