It has been four years since the Covid pandemic forced people to stay at home. Many families had children during this period and these babies experienced social restrictions during the first year of life, a critical time for their development.
Professors Lucy Henry and Nikki Botting at City St George’s, University of London, are leading The Born in Covid Year – Core Lockdown Effects (BICYCLE) study, to investigate how this might have affected talking and thinking skills relative to babies born-after-lockdown.
There is already some evidence that children born-in-lockdown showed slower vocabulary development, and we are interested in whether this persists into early childhood. We expect a complex picture in terms of who may or may not be affected.
To measure the development of babies born in lockdown, the BICYCLE team is:
- Assessing talking, understanding and higher-level thinking skills necessary for classroom engagement. We are doing this through games and stories, and by asking caregivers.
- Interviewing families about their parenting experiences and their child’s early development.
Although the BICYCLE study is not directly assessing hearing skill, we are collecting caregiver-reports about child or family hearing difficulties, including ‘glue ear’. This will enable us to see how hearing is linked to language, compared to other groups.
Covid-positive mothers do not seem more likely to have had children with hearing impairment. However, it may be helpful for audiologists to be aware that the environmental disruption to babies born in lockdown could have knock on effects for communication and attention skills. An increased number of children from this group may therefore present to ENT practitioners to rule out hearing problems, especially given disrupted health visitor contact. One mother told us: “My health visitor was redeployed to hospitals, and I didn't know who to contact for help. It was incredibly overwhelming and lonely… We feel like a lost cohort… My daughter has never seen a health visitor.”
The BICYCLE project has already recruited 100 families from across England and we are aiming for 200. We will also recruit 200 families with children born-after-lockdown to understand any differences.
Families wanting to taking part can email us at: BICYCLE@city.ac.uk to find out more; or contact us on social media: @BICYCLE_study.
