Early child development issues associated with Covid-19 social distancing 

Lockdown and social distancing measures are associated with increased developmental concerns among toddlers, new research suggests.

An extensive Scottish study of nearly 258,000 children shows that those exposed to longer periods of social distancing measures between March 2020 and August 2021 experienced greater increases, with up to almost a 7% increase in development issues.

The toddlers developed problems with speech and language, problem-solving, general behaviour, and their physical and emotional development.

The findings, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, represent the most extensive study in the UK or Europe to examine the impact of lockdown measures on childhood development.

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Using data from Scotland’s routine child health reviews at 13 to 15 months and 27 to 30 months, the researchers, led by academics from the University of Edinburgh, examined how the proportion of children with developmental concerns changed over time.

Health visitors identified children with developmental concerns between January 2019 and August 2023 and the researchers covered more than 80% of young children in Scotland. They used interrupted time-series analysis to examine whether there was a noticeable change in childhood development before and after the pandemic.

The findings show evidence of increased developmental concerns among children, with up to a 6.6 percentage-point increase in the proportion of children with at least one developmental concern across the 72 weeks of lockdown measures.

When Covid-19 restrictions were introduced in March 2020, the rate of developmental concerns increased each week across both age groups. For 13 to 15-month-olds, developmental concerns increased by 0.091 percentage points per week, and for 27 to 30-month-olds, concerns increased by 0.076 percentage points per week.

After the lockdown restrictions ended in August 2021, developmental concerns among older toddlers fell, but younger toddlers did not show the same recovery.

For 27 to 30-month-olds, the rate of developmental concerns decreased each week by 0.067 percentage points, but for 13 to 15-month-olds, the trend did not reverse.

Overall, the proportion of children with developmental concerns after the lockdown measures were removed in August 2021 remained higher than pre-pandemic levels.

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Dr Iain Hardie, from the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said: ‘Covid-19 public health and social measures played a vital role in curbing the spread of infections during the pandemic. However, the findings of our study suggest that they also appear to have been associated with increased early childhood development concerns.’

The research was conducted in partnership with Public Health Scotland and formed part of the wider Covid- 19 Health Impact on long-term Child Development in Scotland (CHILDS) study.

Professor Bonnie Auyeung, Principal researcher and originator of the CHILDS study, also from the University of Edinburgh, added: ‘It has been a privilege to work with our partners in Public Health Scotland on this research.

‘With its integrated healthcare system, Scotland is well-positioned to enable this kind of population-level study. We hope this work will help inform the discussion about how best to support children from the Covid-19 era as they develop over the coming years.’

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The latest phase of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry revealed last month that the former government’s response to the pandemic ‘repeatedly amounted to a case of “too little, too late”’.

The report concluded that the response to the outbreak was too delayed and that early inaction meant mandatory national lockdowns were ‘the only viable option’.