A half-covered adult face, concealing the fundamental expressions of the mouth and offering more muffled sounds than usual.
Wearing a mask among nursery staff, including the Minister of Health Olivier Véran announced Thursday the generalization in the face of the epidemic resurgence, necessarily affects the daily life of toddlers.
From there to having lasting effects on the development of their cognitive capacities?
While it is too early to comment on this point, due to the lack of available studies on this very recent subject, parents and professionals are already raising some concerns.
“My daughters are learning to speak.
At home, they read our lips, they watch how our mouths work, but we see it as soon as we put on a mask, they have more difficulty understanding what is going on, testifies Julien, dad of twins of 20 months. .
Even us, we do not really know how to read the expressions of masked people, so for them ... "This Rouennais, in favor of wearing a mask in nurseries to respond to the health situation, also says that his daughters" understand really less well what I say ”, when his mouth is covered.
Sounds less well perceived
“Hiding the mouth and a large part of the face could decrease the taking of all the cues that children rely on to develop and understand language, since they rely a lot on facial expressions and lip reading
(on the lips )
”, Also supports Anne Dehêtre, president of the national federation of speech therapists, aware that“ this is only conditional, because we still lack perspective ”.
The specialist, who has decided to work with her little patients through a Plexiglas window and therefore without a mask, points to another problem, also deplored by Julien, the father of the twins: that of "muffled sounds".
"With masks the intensity of the voice is reduced, while we know that certain sounds are perceived by the brain at specific times of development", argues the speech therapist, who quotes the "classic gift / cake".
READ ALSO>
Christelle Dubos: "Parents do not have to pay for a crèche place left empty during the crisis"
"We then need it to read and write, so this learning may be a little disrupted," she emphasizes.
Young children are all the more affected by these sounds diminished by the mask as they are also very prone to ENT infections, such as colds and ear infections, already temporarily affecting their hearing.
Julien, like Anne Dehêtre, relies heavily on transparent masks, allowing the entire face to be revealed while preventing the circulation of the coronavirus, which some municipalities have promised to childcare professionals.
“The transparency will improve lip reading and all other signs of communication, but the sounds will remain muted when they are lower.
It will never replace real communication, ”laments the president of the national federation of speech therapists.
And problems of discomfort remain, according to some specialists.
"We don't hesitate to take off the mask for a few seconds"
“Better a well-worn surgical mask that we will take off from time to time to smile on the children, rather than a transparent one which will be expensive and which will be uncomfortable”, summarizes the director of a nursery in the south of France welcoming around sixty children.
Newsletter - Most of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le Parisien
I'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.
Learn more
To cope with these communicational inconveniences, in nurseries the time has come for adaptation, even if it means briefly straying from health guidelines.
“We allow ourselves a little flexibility.
We don't hesitate to take off the mask for a few seconds, to say to the child:
You see, it's me
and slip his first name, ”explains this early childhood professional.
READ ALSO>
Seine-Saint-Denis: at the nursery, "it's almost a start like any other"
To prevent the situation from being too complicated for some children, the Minister of Health also indicated that he was considering “exemptions” on this wearing of the mask, in particular in the case of “children with behavioral disorders”.
"The little ones are built in a mirror with the adult, so we try to put words into the situation and limit any damage, which we do not know the scope", also reports the director of the nursery.
The primordial role of parents
"The adaptations are not more difficult this year compared to the others", notes this professional, for whom it is too early to draw up any inventory.
And to press: "I am not more worried than that.
At home, parents do not have the mask.
"
For Aliyah Morgenstern, teacher at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University and specialist in language acquisition, the role of parents is indeed essential in these conditions.
“When children are exposed to adults without a mask, in the private sphere, they have to spend a lot of time with them,” insists the linguist.
She explains: “Under our masks, we must continue to use facial expressions because they will drive the attitude of the rest of our body.
And if the children are familiar with these expressions at home, they will be able to reconstruct them elsewhere.
This allows them to have the necessary resources to compensate for forms of facial expression during the day.
"
"If adults are suffering, the child perceives it"
Speech therapist Anne Dehêtre adds: “The main mode of language development in children is provided by parents.
At home, parents absolutely must stay in touch with their little ones, especially from 0 to 3 years old.
She has also launched, with her federation, a prevention site, Allo-ortho.com, which offers advice to parents and aims to reassure them.
Linguist Aliyah Morgenstern also believes that there is a need to better train early childhood professionals.
"If wearing a mask remains compulsory, they must particularly insist on the modulation of the voice, on the rest of the body with larger gestures, use their eyes and their voice ...", says she.
“You can use touch, which is very important for the little ones, if you wash your hands.
"
Another difficulty is likely to arise: nursery workers could very badly endure their masks throughout the day and develop migraines.
Which could directly affect children.
“The fact of projecting more with the voice, of more articulation, can create physical and personal suffering.
And if the adults are in pain, the child perceives it ”, worries Aliyah Morgenstern.