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About this paper symposium
| Panel information |
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| Panel 25. Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related |
| Paper #1 | |
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| Examining Head Start Preschoolers' Executive Function, Early Literacy, and Numeracy Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic | |
| Author information | Role |
| Kathleen Lynch, University of Conecticut, United States | Presenting author |
| Monica Lee, Stanford University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Susanna Loeb, Stanford University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Preschoolers’ lives and educational experiences were substantially disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many child care centers experienced intermittent closures, and children were frequently required to stay home from preschool for virus exposure quarantines. As part of a research-practice partnership with an organization that operates Head Start centers in four U.S. states (Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), we examined the early literacy, numeracy, and executive function outcomes of Head Start preschoolers during the pandemic-affected school year 2020-21. Sample A total of 336 children were assessed in fall 2020, with 237 to 250 reassessed in spring 2021 depending on the outcome measured. The average child age at baseline was 51 months, with 46% identified by their parents/caregivers as Hispanic, 36% as Black Non-Hispanic, and 52% as female. Method All assessments were administered by trained assessors remotely via Zoom. We adapted early childhood assessments that are typically administered in-person to be given via Zoom, in order to adhere to public health protocols that restricted in-person contact. Executive function was assessed using the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS; Carlson & Zelazo, 2017), which has been used in prior federal evaluations of Head Start (Kopack Klein et al., 2021). Early numeracy was assessed using three subtests of the Individual Growth and Development Indicators of Early Numeracy (IGDI-ENs; Hojnoski & Floyd, 2012). Lastly, print knowledge was measured as an indicator of early literacy using the Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL; Lonigan et al., 2007), Print Knowledge subtest. We also collected attendance data from administrative files. To examine the association between in-person preschool attendance during the 2020-21 school year and preschoolers’ executive function, literacy, and numeracy outcomes, we fit a series of regression models predicting each respective spring outcome as a function of in-person attendance level, controlling for fall scores and a vector of demographic variables. Our primary models include fixed effects for centers and robust standard errors, as well as controls for child demographics including race, gender, age, home language, parent education, parent marital status, and the assessment setting (home or school). We conducted a suite of sensitivity checks to test the robustness of the findings to alternative modeling approaches. Results and Conclusions Participating children experienced far fewer days of in-person preschool during 2020-21 compared to pre-pandemic norms – the equivalent of approximately 111 days of a hypothetical 180-day school year for those who began the year in the in-person preschool model, compared to a national pre-pandemic Head Start attendance estimate of 170 days (Ansari & Purtell, 2018). Even with their relatively low rates of in-person attendance, study children made mean gains over the course of the year of 0.05 SD in executive function, 0.27 SD in print knowledge, and between 0.45 and 0.71 SD in early numeracy skills, depending on the domain assessed. In two of the three early numeracy areas assessed, children who attended more in-person preschool showed better spring test scores. In the presentation, we will discuss potential explanations for these findings, as well as recommendations for fruitful future research. |
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| Paper #2 | |
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| The Impact of COVID-19 on Young Children’s Executive Function: A Longitudinal, Population-based Study | |
| Author information | Role |
| Stephanie M. Jones, Harvard University, United States | Presenting author |
| Nonie K. Lesaux, Harvard University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Caitlin M. Dermody, Harvard University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Alan Mozaffari, UC Berkeley, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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The present study examines the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Executive Function (EF) of a large, population-based sample of young children. Executive Function (EF) is an essential cognitive capacity that underlies health, academic success, and overall well-being (Bailey & Jones, 2019; Williams & Thayer., 2009; van der Sluis et al., 2007). Operating as a set of inter-related processes driven by the pre-frontal cortex, EF governs attention, control, and goal directed behavior (Bailey & Jones, 2019; Miyake et al., 2000). Specifically, EF comprises the cognitive processes of working memory (e.g., retaining or exchanges pieces of information); response inhibition (e.g., overriding a dominant or automatic response); and set shifting (e.g., keeping track of and employing relevant information across multiple tasks (Bailey & Jones, 2019; Best & Miller, 2010; Wiebe et al. 2011). In everyday life, executive function enables children and adults to follow directions, stay attentive, meet goals, and generally think and act in ways that promote healthy behaviors (Bailey & Jones, 2019; Center for the Developing Child, 2011.) Data for this study come from the Early Learning Study at Harvard (ELS@H), a population-based, longitudinal study of children beginning at ages three and four and their early education and care settings in Massachusetts, USA. The analytical sample includes 2,578 young children assessed from 2018 to 2023. Children’s executive function scores, the primary outcome, were captured in annual waves using the Minnesota Executive Function Scales (MEFs) assessment. The MEFS is tablet-based assessment that measures working memory, inhibitory control, and set shifting in an emotionally neutral way (Jones et al., 2016; Carlson & Zelazo, 2014). Demographic data were captured via parent report, and in the paper we report descriptive trends, as well as results from piecewise polynomial models and mixed effects models. We find that the average rate at which children’s EF skills grew following the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic was lower than the previous national average. Specifically, our results indicate that the children’s scores on the Minnesota Executive Function Scales (MEFs) assessment were lower than the nationally normed standardized scores of age-matched children prior to the pandemic despite matching or exceeding age-matched scores before the onset of the state-wide shutdowns in March 2020 (Figure 1). This discrepancy between identified and anticipated rates of EF skill development is present across all socioeconomic sub-groups (Table 1). These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial influence on children’s EF development. As policy and education leaders seek to address the impacts of the pandemic, this work sheds new light on the importance of EF for supporting the healthy development of children. Centering children’s EF may be a key recommendation for enhancing a host of developmental outcomes in response to the deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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| Paper #3 | |
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| Are The Kids Mostly Alright? COVID School Closures' Surprisingly Minimal Effects on Children’s Social-Emotional Outcomes | |
| Author information | Role |
| Anne Martin, Georgetown University, United States | Presenting author |
| Seth D. Pollak, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Deborah A. Phillips, Georgetown University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Gabriela Livas Stein, UT Austin, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Anna M. Wright, Georgetown University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Anna D. Johnson, Georgetown University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Early data collected during COVID-induced school closures or shortly after schools reopened was almost universally negative, suggesting children’s learning and social-emotional skills had been dramatically impacted (e.g., Browne et al., 2021; Liang et al., 2021). However, there has been little research since then that affords the opportunity to assess COVID’s impact on long-term developmental trajectories. In addition, much public attention has focused on more affluent families’ experiences, with inadequate representation from minoritized communities. Finally, many reports of post-COVID child wellbeing have lacked pre-COVID data, limiting conclusions about change over time. The current study addresses these limitations by examining a single cohort of children, from exclusively low-income but diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds, whose social-emotional skills were assessed repeatedly before and after pandemic-related school closures. Importantly, we also collected data on household hardships (e.g., low income, maternal depression), including those newly emerged during COVID (which we term “disruptions”). With these unique data, we ask, first, whether the period of COVID-induced school changed children’s growth trajectories on social-emotional skills. Second, we explore whether these changes varied by the extent of hardships and disruptions faced by families in our sample. Method Data are drawn from the Tulsa School Experiences and Early Development (SEED) Study, which has followed a diverse cohort of children from low-income families in Tulsa, Oklahoma since age 4 (2016-2017). These children (N = 824) were in first grade at the onset of pandemic-related school closures, experienced second grade remotely (2020-2021), and returned to in-person school for third grade (2021-2022). Teachers reported on children’s social-emotional skills (prosocial and disruptive behavior, attention skills, and concentration problems) annually beginning in preschool or kindergarten (2017-2018) through the spring of fourth grade (2023), with the exception of second grade, when schools were closed. We estimated longitudinal multilevel growth models to examine changes over time in outcomes, before and after school closures. We examine both predicted changes in children’s skill levels following school closures (i.e., intercept differences) as well as predicted changes in children’s growth rate following the return to in-person learning (i.e., slope differences). And, we explore whether these changes varied as a function of the number of household hardships and disruptions children experienced between 2020 and 2021. Results Children showed no significant changes in levels of disruptive behavior, concentration problems, or attention skills before and after school closings, nor did their growth rates in these outcomes change in the years post school-reopening. Children displayed small decreases in their prosocial skills and their growth rates in this domain slowed slightly, but these changes were miniscule. Neither household hardships nor disruptions were associated with children’s trajectories for any of the social-emotional skills. Conclusions Findings suggest that school closures had only small impacts – and often no impact at all - on children’s social-emotional skills, and trajectories were not affected by household hardships or disruptions. While surprising, given the limited research on long-term outcomes and on youth from minoritized and low-income communities, this may indicate a pattern of resilience that demands much more research attention. |
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| Paper #4 | |
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| Changes in children’s behavioral health and family well-being before and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic | |
| Author information | Role |
| Alan Mozaffari, UC Berkeley, United States | Presenting author |
| Stephanie M. Jones, Harvard University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Nonie K. Lesaux, Harvard University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic necessitate a comprehensive and long-term view of its impacts on children and their proximal environments, given how disruption of developmental opportunities could have long term effects on their developmental trajectories, impacting education, economic, and health outcomes (Benner et al., 2020). Closures of childcare and schools in addition to physical distancing measures, disrupted work and family life, instability in school structures and functioning, among other factors, have posed distinct challenges for children’s caregivers, potentially influencing their ability to insulate children from the instability and uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Stress and strain faced by children and parents resulting from the pandemic are likely to increase children’s challenging behaviors (e.g., dysregulation, withdrawal, aggression, and non-compliance). Growing literature has succeeded in analyzing patterns of children’s behavioral health and wellbeing before and throughout the pandemic. Recent retrospective and cross-sectional parent and child survey studies have reported a worsening in children’s mental health and internalizing behaviors (Patrick et al., 2020; Westrupp et al., 2020; Newlove-Delgado et al., 2020). While these studies are able to examine children’s state of health and wellbeing, their results may be conflated with the stress and urgency amidst crisis, only offering a snapshot of comparisons between two “pre” and “post” periods. Longitudinal studies, therefore, are well-situated to examine impact and outcome trajectories with multiple waves of “pre” - and now “post” - data (Weiland & Morris, 2022), particularly currently funded childhood longitudinal studies that examine developmental and behavioral trajectories (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2023). Hanno et al. (2021) was one such initial study that documented “pre” and “post” effects of the pandemic on child behavioral health and family wellbeing outcomes, finding increases in children’s dysregulated, internalizing, and externalizing behaviors and decreases in children’s adaptive behaviors. In this same study, the shifts in children’s behavioral outcomes co-occurred with changes in family functioning, including increases in parent stress, household chaos, parent-child conflict, and declines in parental mental health. This paper extends that work by adding four more waves of data lasting until spring 2024, observing children of the Hanno et al. study as they became 10-11 years old. Data come from the same longitudinal, population study of Massachusetts children (n=3665; Jones et al., 2020) to describe developmental trajectories of children’s behavioral wellbeing (regulatory skills, adaptive behaviors, behavior problems) and family functioning (parent-child conflict, parent stress and mental health) up to the widespread pandemic related shutdowns in March 2020 and for the four years beyond them. The paper employs data from repeated parent surveys analyzing (1) descriptive measurements of the proportion of negative changes between pre-shutdown and each post-shutdown period, (2) child/family fixed effect models (making within-child comparisons between outcomes pre- and post-shutdown). |
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The COVID-19 Pandemic's Impact on Young Children’s Social and Emotional Development: Insights and Surprises
Submission Type
Paper Symposium
Description
| Session Title | The COVID-19 Pandemic's Impact on Young Children’s Social and Emotional Development: Insights and Surprises |