COVID lockdowns disrupted a crucial social skill among preschoolers, study finds

COVID lockdowns disrupted a crucial social skill among preschoolers, study finds

Lockdowns. Social distancing. Shuttered schools and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping disruptions set…

medicalxpress.com

By Jody Murray

Lockdowns. Social distancing. Shuttered schools and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping disruptions set off a stampede of “what it’s doing to us” research, focused largely on schoolchildren. How were students’ academics affected? Their mental health? Their social development?

Left unexamined was whether the pandemic impacted the social cognition of preschool children—kids younger than 6—whose social norms were upended by day care closures and families sheltered at home.

That changed when a UC Merced research team, looking at data it had started to gather before the pandemic, discovered children ages 3½ to 5½ tested before and after COVID lockdowns revealed a significant gap in a key cognitive skill, particularly for children from homes with low financial resources and adults with less education.

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