Murillo Eva, Casla Marta, Rujas Irene, Lázaro Miguel
Departamento de Psicología Básica, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, España.
Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, España.
Rev Logop Foniatr Audiol. 2023 Jul-Sep;43(3):100315. doi: 10.1016/j.rlfa.2023.100315. Epub 2023 Jun 27.
The effects that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on the language development of children are still poorly understood. In this study, we examine the effect of the pandemic on this development by analyzing the vocabulary and the morphosyntactic level in a sample of toddlers.
One hundred and fifty-three boys and girls between 18 and 31 months of age participated in the study. Of these participants, 82 were born and evaluated before the pandemic (PRE group) and the other 71 were born during the pandemic and were evaluated at the end of the 2021/2022 academic year, the last academic year in which restrictive measures derived from the pandemic were maintained in the schools (POST group). Both groups were matched by age and mother's educational level and attended nursery schools with similar socioeconomic characteristics.
We found lower scores both in vocabulary and morphosyntactic development in the POST group than in the PRE group. These findings are consistent with the scarce previous studies on children's language development during the pandemic.
The measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic have had a negative impact on the language development of children under 3 years of age. It is necessary to pay special attention to these children due to the needs they may require in the immediate future.
新冠疫情可能对儿童语言发展产生的影响仍未得到充分了解。在本研究中，我们通过分析一组幼儿的词汇和形态句法水平，来考察疫情对这一发展过程的影响。
153名年龄在18至31个月之间的男孩和女孩参与了本研究。在这些参与者中，82名在疫情之前出生并接受评估（疫情前组），另外71名在疫情期间出生，并在2021/2022学年末接受评估，这是学校维持因疫情而采取的限制措施的最后一个学年（疫情后组）。两组在年龄和母亲教育水平方面进行了匹配，且就读于具有相似社会经济特征的幼儿园。
我们发现，疫情后组在词汇和形态句法发展方面的得分均低于疫情前组。这些发现与此前关于疫情期间儿童语言发展的少量研究结果一致。
新冠疫情期间采取的措施对3岁以下儿童的语言发展产生了负面影响。鉴于他们在不久的将来可能需要的需求，有必要对这些儿童给予特别关注。
