Cases of children with covid-19 increase in the US 0:59
(CNN) -
For young children, the pandemic comes at a crucial time to develop important skills for empathy, safety and more - a phase that some parents worry will be affected by the use of masks.
"There are sensitive periods in early childhood development where language development and emotional development develop really quickly during the first few years of life," said Ashley Ruba, a postdoctoral researcher in the Children's Emotions Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Being able to use the verbal or facial cues of others to discover how someone is feeling or to pick up on safe or dangerous aspects of environments and people is a critical task for young children, Ruba added.
The concern that the use of masks could interfere with these natural learning experiences and communication skills has been studied prior to the pandemic.
When children ages 3 to 8 saw faces covered with masks, they showed no impediment to classifying expressions, according to a 2012 study published in the journal
Cognition
.
This suggested that children under the age of 9 preferred to study the eye area even when they could see full faces, the researchers wrote.
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During the pandemic, Ruba has also studied whether masks affected children's ability to understand facial expressions.
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Ruba and her co-author showed more than 80 children between 7 and 13 years old photos of unobstructed faces, covered with a surgical mask or with sunglasses.
The faces showed sadness, anger or fear.
When asked to assign one of the six emotions to each face, the children were right about the faces discovered 66% of the time, the researchers found.
When the faces were covered by masks, the children had problems, but were able to correctly identify sadness about 28% of the time, anger 27%, and fear 18%, which was more than the odds (about 17%) to correctly guess an emotion from the six labels.
Given these findings and children's innate flexibility to adapt to challenges or catch up, some experts do not suspect any long-term effects of mask use on children's development.
"I believe that once the masks are gone or almost, whatever the impact they have, we will recover quickly," said Dr. Hugh Bases, associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone Health.
"If children's social and language development is a little bit slower, which could be, balancing that with the risk of someone dying from coronavirus, when all the evidence we have indicates that they will catch up and be fine. I just don't think it's worth it, "said Amy Learmonth, a professor of psychology at William Paterson University in New Jersey.
"I look at the number of people who have died in this country and it is shocking."
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Differences between ages and learning styles
From birth, babies learn to communicate by looking at the faces, mouths and voices of loved ones and trying to respond, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
"What your 6-year-old is learning is about things like sarcasm and meaning. What your 1-year-old is learning is like that thing with four legs running around the house is called a 'dog'." Learmonth said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not recommended that children under 2 years of age wear masks.
For children younger than 18 months, learning to communicate through visual cues is "probably more important because learning a new word when you don't have one is difficult," Learmonth added.
If you're concerned about your child's social and language development during the pandemic, be sure to set aside time to talk to your child face-to-face when they are at home and without wearing a mask, Learmonth suggested.
"For most of our children, as long as they interact with their parents in the morning and at night, they will be fine."
These interactions can occur during baths, playtime, or meals.
Also, "the conversation is often more than the actual verbal content," said Bases.
Other elements like vocal inflection or unmasked physical gestures can add to the context that helps children develop communication skills.
Young children, including those with visual impairments, will use other cues or senses to understand and learn language, according to the AAP.
One concern, however, is for children whose language or social development is atypical, Learmonth said.
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"Anyone who is a little behind in language development or a little behind in understanding social cues, what worries me is that they will fall further behind," he added.
"Because unlike a typically developing child who is probably fine with just four to five hours of full face interaction a day, a child who struggles is going to need everything they can get and more," Learmonth said. .
When Parents Can Help
To better communicate with a child while wearing a mask, the AAP recommends that adults get the child's attention before speaking, look directly at the child without physical or noise barriers in the way, and speak slowly and louder, but without yelling, if required.
You can add contextual information to your words using your hands, body language, and tone of voice.
Depending on the answer, ask your child if he understood and repeat it if necessary.
If you have concerns about your child's language development skills now or later, seek an evaluation from certified speech and language pathologists.
Some of them still practice in person with transparent masks or virtually, according to the AAP.
"As speech and language pathologists working with children with communication disorders, our transition to the new normal of face mask communication was fast and smooth," wrote India-based speech and language pathologists Divya Swaminathan. and Shoba Meera in an article in October 2020.
The "greater good" of protecting each other, teachers and families "far outweighs the potential theoretical problem that could arise as a result of wearing face masks," said Bases.
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"Children adjust, they adapt, and when they don't have to use them, they adapt again ... It's a very fluid and dynamic kind of learning. And development is obviously not linear. There are ups and downs, even in the days before school. masks".
Another encouragement is that children who live in cultures where face covering is the norm still learn to communicate, Learmonth said.
"There are many ways around the world to talk to young children and they all work."
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