The impact of the pandemic on children’s language development

What if 40% of the generation cannot function effectively in school? Signs are apparent that this can happen in children aged 0-6 COVID-19 (COVID-19)now it has been 6 grades from K.

Some children were buffered by extra support at home, but the large strip of the population was not so fortunate. The 2021-2022 national report found that four out of 10 students face at least one disadvantaged experience in their families, including financial difficulties. divorceor imprisonment (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2021).

“Pandemic Learning Loss” does not fully convey the gravity of the problem from the sudden disruption to home and school life.

Our country is currently at the junction of several crises.

• Reading the Crisis: Only about third graders in fourth grade were skilled before the pandemic, but after that it was less (NAEP, 2024).
• Special Ed Crisis: Approximately 20% of children have reading/learning disabilities or dyslexia, but half of them have historically not received special services in schools (Cassidy et al., 2023). Dyslexia has the largest share of special ED students, and special EDs have had to accept an additional 1 million students over the past five years (The Advocacy Institute, 2024).
• School Funding Crisis: US schools already spend more than $120 billion a year on special EDs across the country, but rely on a shortfall of at least $10 billion a year (NCLD, 2023).
• Teacher shortage crisis: Although the population of special EDs is growing, schools face a severe shortage of trained teachers (Peyton & Acosta, 2022).

The pandemic has affected many aspects of child development. One of the most important is language development due to broad and lasting influence across people.

First scoping review and longitudinal studies.

The first extensive review of studies on the effects of the pandemic on early language development has only been published this year (Zuniga-Montanez et al., 2025). In this review, we concluded that literacy, school preparation and general communication skills were all negatively affected by the pandemic. These findings were made in the graduate school. Typical Not people with population, learning or other disabilities.

The first longitudinal study of early language development in infants born during Covid-19 was published last August (Pejovic et al., 2024). This study followed participants throughout their first two.5 years of life.

The speech comes as a continuous stream. Infants must recognize words boundary Get the language. Pre-pandemic young infants can divide words in the audio chain. However, their pandemic cohort was unable to do so even for 12 months. Pre-pandemic, even infants at risk of speech impairment can do this by 12 months.

Before the pandemic, only about 12% of two-year-olds were not at the two-week stage. In the pandemic group, that number doubled to 24%.

Practitioner-based reports

I don’t know much about the negative effects of Covid-19, as conditions at the time restricted and obstructed research research. Practitioner-based reports give you a greater glimpse into the impact of the pandemic.

Last June, the Charlotte Speech and Hearing Center in North Carolina reported that the incidence of language delays was more than doubled (Stahnke, 2024).

Historically, about 20% of children have not passed the Charlotte Center audio language screening. However, since 2021, that number has only been at over 40%. This doubling of incidence has also been reported by other healthcare providers in the diagnosis of communication-related disorders.

Human costs

While on alert, these numbers do not fully include photos of what is happening to children across the generation. To that end, I look to my fieldwork over 30 years as a clinical linguist.

Language recognition and production are supported by many processes within the brain. These language processes should occur automatically and quickly, mainly outside of operation. Memorya spiritual space for consciousness Note.

These are important criteria, as there is a limited amount of verbal input and working memory that must be processed all day long. When you handle the overload, your brain shuts down. Children themselves cannot clarify what is happening in their heads. Many are irritated, angry, It was pushed downor defeat. The first language problem snowballs and affects many aspects of the life of young people.

Language processing problems often lead to reading difficulty and dyslexia. Dyslexia students drop out of high school at three times the typical speed. Typical US juvenile prisoners are at the ninth grade level by age, but read at the fourth grade level (Vacca, 2008). The average prison prisoner cannot achieve academically exceeding seventh grade. At least half of prison prisoners have learning disabilities, such as dyslexia.

Limit point

We are already at the breakpoint. I have heard that the term is increasingly being used in conversations with school administrators across the country.

Researchers call struggling readers who don’t improve the intervention with “non-responders.” Imagine the problem when the public school system is barely able to handle these non-responders before Covid-19, when the ranks are doubled.

In summary, the problem is:

• Balloon size for student populations requiring special services
• Special edition balloon cost
• Identification and treatment of language-related disorders such as dyslexia
• The urgency of getting the help of millions of children affected by the pandemic

Fortunately, this type of issue can be addressed with a scalable solution. Such a solution using autonomousness ai Already piloted in US schools, there are positive preliminary results.

It’s not business as usual

Selected New technology usually occurs slowly education. If advanced innovation simplifies the process and prevents the school’s curriculum and IT systems from having the orientation and integration required.

In fact, schools can’t afford to wait when they’re already on the cliff. Every year, delaying their response to the pandemic’s child crisis means losing a large portion of our students and losing our future workforce.

This time we either do it right or we all have a lifelong outcome.