How Have Face Masks Affected Childhood Development During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

         The vast amount of learning that occurs during the first years of a person’s life is undeniable. This is one develops fine motor skills, forms words and understands what they mean, recognizes familiar faces, and more. Despite differences in life circumstances, parenting styles, and cultural norms, almost all babies develop these skills similarly. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly changed how our world works, and this has changed the realities of babies and toddlers too. Babies and toddlers throughout this pandemic have been sheltered inside, away from restaurants, parks, and grandma’s house, drastically decreasing the amount of new people that they encounter. Further, outside of their families, many of these babies have likely only seen people wearing face masks, covering most of their face. There likely has not been a generation of babies experiencing these circumstances and many of these babies and toddlers are being described as shy around strangers. However, it is interesting to consider the possibility of differences in the development process and developmental outcomes due to these differences in circumstances.

An interesting news article called “In These Times of COVID-19, How Does Adults Wearing Masks Affect Children's Speech Development?” By Allison Bowen highlighted a Ph.D. student named Brittany Manning. Manning studies how children learn how to speak, and she notes that children do learn from seeing adults around them moving their mouths, however this is not the only factor to learning language. Additionally, Dr. Elizabeth Norton, a professor at Northwestern University, describes the resilience of children in learning. Dr. Norton suggests that although there may be some challenges, especially in certain groups of children, such as those learning two languages, children will be able to overcome these barriers. 

The work of Conte et al. titled “Face-Sensitive Brain Responses in the First Year of Life” investigated facial recognition in babies over the course of their first year. The primary outcome of this work was identifying the specificity of the N290 region of the brain by analyzing ERP respondes. N290 was found to be specific for facial recognition, which is different than in adults. During Dr. Guy’s presentation, she emphasized the important differences in ERP responses between children with and without autism. This leads me to consider the possible consequences of babies primarily being exposed to people wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is reasonable to consider the possibility that losing exposure to the bottom half of people’s faces may affect the development of facial recognition ability and thus, the N290 region of the brain. It would be interesting to do a comparative study examining babies that have primarily only been exposed to people wearing masks and the ERP responses to both masked and unmasked faces. 

However, it is important to note that although times may be different right now in children’s development, there are ways that parents can adapt to help meet their child’s needs. Dr. Guerrero reflects on her own child’s speech development plateau at the beginning of the pandemic in her piece “Supporting Early Childhood Development during COVID-19.” As both a parent and a physician training in pediatrics, Dr. Guerrero explores how she has adapted to facilitate as much learning as possible for her child. She suggests parents utilizing rhymes, songs, and virtual playtimes in order to help accommodate for changing times. However, she also notes the importance of parent’s going easy on themselves throughout this hard time for all of us. This is important to understand. It is definitely interesting to consider how our children’s development may have been changed due to the conditions that the COVID-19 pandemic has created, but it is also important to recognize that no matter what, our children will be okay. 

Bowen, Alison. “In These Times of COVID-19, How Does Adults Wearing Masks Affect Children's Speech Development?” Chicagotribune.com, Chicago Tribune, 14 Apr. 2021, www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-prem-covid-life-speech-therapy-children-learning-speak-tt-20210414-jqshwz4yurbipdbhj5hvxk64fq-story.html.

Conte, Stefania, et al. “Face-Sensitive Brain Responses in the First Year of Life.” NeuroImage, vol. 211, 2020, p. 116602., doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116602.

Natalie Guerrero. “Supporting Early Childhood Development during COVID-19.” Baylor College of Medicine Blog Network, 4 Apr. 2021, blogs.bcm.edu/2021/04/05/supporting-early-childhood-development-during-covid-19/.