The ongoing pandemic means many children will have spent the best part of a year interacting much less than normal with teachers, friends, and family. The question then arises: how will this have changed the way they have learned to speak? It is even worth pondering whether or not lockdown and other COVID-19 measures have affected children regarding acquiring the speech and language skills vital to their academic and social development? And so, if children's speech has been held back, what can parents do about it? A recent survey of schools and parents, conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation, has found that children who started school in autumn 2020 needed more support than in previous years. 

The findings suggest that the greatest area of concern was communication and language development, in which 96% (55 out of 57) of schools said they were either "very concerned" or "quite concerned." Closely followed were personal, social, and emotional development (91%) and literacy (89%) since they heavily depend on developing strong speech, language, and communication abilities. However, the good news is that parents have done an amazing job through the pandemic to keep their children safe and healthy and have had no time to think about anything else. 

Having few activities at their disposal and the restrictions imposed by the lockdown on seeing extended family has been a challenge for many. It has also meant a considerable reduction in children's exposure to the new vocabulary we might use when visiting our family members. As we know, the development of vocabulary levels at age two predicts children's performance at school entry, which itself is predictive of later outcomes. Furthermore, the impact of widespread mask-wearing during the pandemic has also made us realize how much we rely on lip-reading. It has especially become a problem for children who experience glue ears, leading to temporary hearing loss in early and middle childhood.

When children get back to school and pre-schools, they may struggle to differentiate between similar sounds, such as "p" and "t," when their teacher is wearing a mask. In turn, it can impact a child's speech development or phonological awareness, which is the ability to break down words into speech sounds to assist with early reading and spelling acquisition.

The fact is that the use of masks does tend to obscure facial expressions, which contributes to how children especially understand the meaning behind the words they hear. What this means is that it increases the potential for a child to misunderstand and even learn incorrectly. But, more importantly, there can also be an impact on children's development of social and emotional skills.

With the lockdown restrictions now slowly easing, it is time to look for opportunities to develop your child's vocabulary by visiting places such as libraries, city farms, parks, and gardens and meeting up with friends and family. However, suppose you are running out of ideas to help your child develop their verbal communication given the current circumstances. In that case, you need to seek help from organizations such as I CAN, the children's communication charity, who have developed resources for parents to help preschoolers and primary-aged children with their speaking and listening.