Effects of COVID on babies born in lockdown year

[PlantDoctor]

Just been reading this BBC article about kids starting school who were born during lockdown.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39kry9j3rno

DD was born just before lockdown so luckily was able to meet grandparents etc. before the first lockdown, but thinking back it was such an isolating time. I remember being grateful she was only tiny and didn't understand she was missing out, but obviously now we can see the effects of babies not socialising with others. It says 1/3 of this cohort have additional speech and language needs, and I know DD's preschool teacher said theirs was a particularly difficult year.

Crazy times.

Afaik up to the age of three the primary caregiver is the most important thing and most of these babies were lucky to have their parents at home day and night time, giving them their undivided attention.

The focus should be on the children that had just turned three when the lockdowns started. They were effected the most by locked playgrounds, masked shopkeepers, no visitors, no nurseries/ preschools.
That's the children going to year 3 this year.

But we are seeing children who did not get quality attention, ones with mothers struggling from PND, domestic violence, lack of support from HV/professionals or M/mil as well as parents who were working from home. Children initially struggled with sensory overload...noises, the busyness even hearing real sounds not digital ones those children entering the outside world for the first time aged 6 months or more had things to cope with too.

I'm not on the computer with the sources on it at the moment - but there was some research done on the impact on older kids regarding the only similar thing in recent years - SARS in the affected areas; also things like analysis of SATs strengths and weaknesses in the cohorts returning to school as things unlocked which showed a big impact in some areas and research compiling reports from reception teachers regarding school readiness compared to previous cohorts.

I did my dissertation on it in early 2022 where the impact studies were only just starting to emerge about how it had affected the slightly older kids back then - obviously it's become significantly more studied since then but I was working off the very initial reports and research coming through.

DD2 was really impacted in terms of her language - she lost so much progress that she'd made with SALT and we had to regain that lost ground... DD1 fared better - same home environment with lots of stimulation, a parent who was an ex teacher and a trainee SALT so about as optimal as they could have got - and it still hammered the then-7 year old's development a lot.

Thanks @TorturedParentsDepartment

Ours were a bit older than yours again when we locked down. I guess each age group was able to understand things differently and their key things to develop during that time varied accordingly.

Seeing the then year 7’s receive their GCSE results this year and being the first year group to be back to pre covid syllabuses, marking etc has been really interesting from a parents point of view, and not necessarily in a negative way.