Vásquez-Echeverría Alejandro, Gónzalez Meliza, Loose Tianna, Ciganda Matilda, Díaz Belén, Liz Maite, Tomás-Llerena Clementina, Côté Sylvana M
Interdisciplinary Center on Cognition in Teaching and Learning, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Faculty of Psychology, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Prev Sci. 2024 Aug 8. doi: 10.1007/s11121-024-01716-4.
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting mitigation measures have led to increased vulnerabilities in early child development. However, research is scarce and there are no studies on the persistence of these losses three years into the pandemic among young children. To fill in this gap, we examined census-like evaluations of school readiness carried out among preschoolers in Uruguay. The assessments were carried out among 5 cohorts of 5-year-olds: who were assessed prior to the pandemic (2018, 2019); during the pandemic (2020, 2021); and after the health emergency declaration ended in Uruguay (2022). A total of 180,984 teacher evaluations were included covering cognitive, motor and socio-emotional development, as well as attitudes toward learning. Overall, we found that scores in most spheres of child development decreased from before to during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, scores returned to pre-pandemic levels. Our findings suggest the recovery of developmental losses among cohorts of children in kindergarten took more than two years in a country that experienced a mild-to-moderate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
新冠疫情及其引发的缓解措施导致幼儿早期发展的脆弱性增加。然而，相关研究稀缺，且尚无关于疫情三年后这些幼儿发展损失持续性的研究。为填补这一空白，我们对乌拉圭学龄前儿童进行了类似人口普查的入学准备评估。评估对象为5组5岁儿童：在疫情之前（2018年、2019年）接受评估；在疫情期间（2020年、2021年）接受评估；以及在乌拉圭卫生紧急声明结束后（2022年）接受评估。共纳入180,984份教师评估，涵盖认知、运动和社会情感发展以及学习态度。总体而言，我们发现2020年和2021年疫情期间，儿童发展的大多数领域得分均较疫情前有所下降。2022年，得分恢复到疫情前水平。我们的研究结果表明，在一个受新冠疫情影响为轻度至中度的国家，幼儿园儿童群体发展损失的恢复用时超过两年。
