Behind the headlines – lockdown and development

Anyone who was pregnant or gave birth during lockdown knows it was a different and sometimes difficult experience. There have been various headlines since then about the impact of lockdown on children’s development, as if you need something else to feel guilty about. We noticed another at the weekend, but what has it really found? 

At the weekend we saw this headline – ‘Children born in pandemic have poorer communication skills, study finds’.^[1]  

The headline was based on findings published from a study following the development of 312 babies born in Ireland during lockdown, and comparing this with 605 babies born between 2008 and 2011.^[1]   

We know this headline is anxiety-inducing for parents, so we decided to look deeper into the study itself and find out more about the data behind the headline... 

How was development assessed? 

Parents completed two questionnaires when their child was 24 months old. They were the ASQ (version2) 24-month questionnaire (this is the one used by health visitors in the United Kingdom for the ‘two year check’) and the Child Behaviour Checklist, which focuses on emotions and behaviour.  

What did the questionnaires show?  

The results for the Child Behaviour Checklist showed no significant difference in scores between children born during the pandemic and those born between 2008 and 2011.^[2] 

There were, however, statistically significant differences in the ASQ scores in Communication – with the group of children born during the pandemic having lower scores in this section.   

Children born during the pandemic also had lower scores in the Gross motor section, but when these were adjusted to take account of differences in the groups being tested the differences in scores were not significant. 

Should you worry about your child because of this research? 

If your child was born during lockdown, and you see headlines about their development, this can be worrying. It’s important to remember that research looks at groups of children to help policy makers and professionals think about what a whole group needs – their findings don’t always translate directly to any one child, including yours.  

These findings do not mean that all children born during lockdown will have lower communication skills – as always, looking at your child’s skills journey will help you to support them where they are, to keep mastering skills.  

All research has limitations  

In all research papers, researchers write about the limitations of their study, and this aspect is often a bit lost when we see research reported in the media.  

In this paper they explain that comparing results from after the pandemic with those from children born more than ten years before means there were some differences in the groups of children involved (usually scientists try to make sure the groups involved in research are as similar as possible).  

When studies compare children who were born at different times it is really hard to say which differences in their experiences actually impact the results. This means they could be other factors, not only lockdown, which might impact the development of communication skills. 

For all these reasons, whenever you see a scary headline about child development you can take a deep breath and be assured that it is unlikely to be as black-and-white as it seems – and know we'll look at new research and share more detail about it in the app.  

If you’d like to find out more about the impacts of lockdown on development you can listen to our podcast episode ‘The impacts of lockdown on babies and young children’ 

References: 

[1] McKie, R. (2023, 16 July). Children born in pandemic have poorer communication skills, study finds. The Observer. Children born in pandemic have poorer communication skills, study finds | Coronavirus | The Guardian 

[2] Byrne, S., Slidge, H., Hurley, S., Hoolahan, S., Franklin, R., Jordan, N., Boland, F., Murray, D.M., & Hourihane, J. (2023). ‘Developmental and behavioural outcomes at 2 years in babies born during the covid-19 pandemic: communication concerns and pandemic birth cohort’. Archives of Disease in Childhood, Published Online First: 21 June 2023. doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2022-325271