How pandemic isolation is affecting preschoolers
With much of their lives spent in the COVID-19 pandemic, families and health experts in Greater Columbus and across the United States have noticed a sharp increase in very young children with speech and hearing issues.
In 12 central Ohio neighborhoods, 52% of children ages 3 to 5 who were tested by the group nonprofit Columbus Speech and Hearing failed their speech-language screenings, and 40% failed their hearing tests in 2021.
Before the pandemic, 27% of children overall tested failed their speech-language assessments and 21% failed their hearing screenings in 2019.
“We’re all very focused on how we want children to do well in school, but I would like them to do well in life … that’s probably why this is so concerning to me,” said Davy Weaver, the group’s director of clinical services.
Columbus Speech and Hearing didn’t do screenings in 2020 because of the pandemic, and Weaver worries it kept parents from getting their preschoolers tested and catching developmental issues earlier.
Without intervention, the implications of the failed tests could be far-reaching, from kindergarten all the way up to adulthood, Weaver said.
Even before the pandemic, nearly 11% of children ages 3 to 6 had a communication disorder, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders.
Speech and hearing assessments in 2021
The 2021 Columbus Speech and Hearing screenings were held in 12 communities, including eight in Columbus.
Preschools and child centers will often request free on-site screenings from Columbus Speech and Hearing. But the group also screens in “opportunity zones,” local areas that lack access to educational enrichment and quality health care for children identified by United Way and Ohio Children’s Foundation, funders of Columbus Speech and Hearing.
The nonprofit group uses a standardized developmental assessment that tests language,
behavioral and communication skills.
The assessments are administered by certified speech pathologists, who begin with a simple conversation and then look for patterns in sentence structure, struggles with certain sounds and changes in vocal quality, Weaver said.
They also assess children’s abilities to hear at different frequencies.
“This is just a snapshot picture of what’s going on with a little one’s communication, and it can alert us to if everything is fine at this stage or if there might be some concerns,” Weaver said.
If speech pathologists have concerns, they provide a list of resources to parents and encourage a full assessment of their child’s communication abilities, Weaver said.
Causes for language, hearing issues
With families on lockdown for much of the pandemic, many kids missed out on play dates, story time at the library and other outings where they could socialize with other children. And without being around other families, doctors and educators, some parents had a hard time figuring out whether their children were developmentally on track or not.
Ashley Wilcox, chief program officer with the Columbus Early Learning Center, coordinates screenings and secures services for eligible children with Columbus Speech and Hearing. The two organizations have been partners since 2007.
Small upticks in children failing their speech-language and hearing screenings have happened before, Wilcox said. But the percentage has never been so high, possibly due to the move to kids being isolated and moved to remote learning during the early part of the pandemic, she said.
Many parents also likely had less time to engage in “two-way” communication with their children because they had to juggle child care and helping their kids with school while working, Wilcox said.
When children learn how to communicate in a twoway exchange, they observe mouth movements, listen to pronunciation, look for social cues and have backand-forth conversations with another person, she said. Children do not receive a full two-way exchange when they learn on tablets or screens, something many busy parents have relied on during the pandemic.
“There was really a limited amount of exchange between children, other members of the community, peers and sometimes even family members, which I think had an impact on language acquisition,” Wilcox said.
Well checks to the pediatrician might have caught hearing and speech issues, but many families put those off during the pandemic, she said. Daycare teachers might have noticed issues with communication and behavior, but many children didn’t go for part or all of the pandemic.
Connections with family members, who often sound important alarms and catch developmental abnormalities for young parents, also didn’t happen with the same kind of frequency as before COVID-19, Weaver said.
“A lot of referrals in the past were done by grandparents,” Weaver said.
Wilcox said the Columbus Early Learning Center took preemptive steps to combat language deficiencies during the pandemic. The child care center, which operates five locations throughout Columbus, invested in see-through masks and face shields so staff could fully communicate with children.
Impact of pandemic could last a lifetime
Along with deficits in language developments, many children also lag in social, emotional and behavioral skills, presenting even more problems.
“There’s a huge gap in learning in a variety of different developmental areas because of how the pandemic alienated people from each other as they tried to be safe,” Wilcox said.
While these children may not be ready to learn in school, more concerning is the possibility that these recent communication and comprehension struggles will last their entire lifetime, Weaver said.
“Everyone focuses on being able to survive in kindergarten, but there’s so much more to life than school,” Weaver said. “We need language to go to the grocery store, to interact with our peers and to build relationships.”