Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Screen media use in early childhood has largely increased in recent years, even more so during the COVID-19 epidemic, and there is much discussion regarding its influence on neurodevelopment, including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study examined the relationship between use of TV, computer, tablet and smartphone at age 2 years and risk of ASD assessed in telephone-based questionnaires among 12,950 children participating in the nationally representative ELFE (‘Etude Longitudinale Française sur les Enfants’) birth cohort study in France.

Previous developmental research shows that young children display a preference for ingroup members when it comes to who they accept information from – even when that information is false. However, it is not clear how this ingroup bias develops into adolescence, and how it affects responses about peers who misinform in intergroup contexts, which is important to explore with growing numbers of young people on online platforms. Given that the developmental span from childhood to adolescence is when social groups and group norms are particularly important, the present study took a Social Reasoning Developmental Approach. This study explored whether children and adolescents respond differently to a misinformer spreading false claims about a peer breaking COVID-19 rules, depending on (a) the group membership of the misinformer and their target and (b) whether the ingroup had a “critical” norm that values questioning information before believing it.

Life satisfaction plays a crucial role in integral development and mental health during childhood and adolescence. Recently, it has been shown that cyberbullying has severe consequences for the mental health and wellbeing of victims such as increased anxiety, depressive symptoms and even suicide risk. Although the role of the family in life satisfaction and cyberbullying behaviors has been studied, there is limited information on its impacts during the current pandemic period. The aim of this study is to determine the role of family variables regarding students' levels of life satisfaction and cyberbullying victimization during the pandemic period.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the provision and downloading of educational apps for children have both increased. This paper reports the results of an extensive literature review of the age-rating systems of digital content (audiovisual and games) used around the world and demonstrates the weakness of those instruments that prove ineffective in choosing digital content for children. Age-rating systems are arbitrary and only focus on explicit content that is considered harmful to preschool children. The paper proposes an alternative model of app analysis based on child development. The main objective of the research is to determine the developmental appropriateness of apps for young children and its effects on children’s responses through a content analysis of 318 apps and a test of a subset of them (N=25) with a sample of 53 children aged 3–5. To this end, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis is used to extract a composite index of the apps’ developmental appropriateness, which was used to specify a path analysis. The results show that developmental appropriateness is associated with the highest positive ratings by children and, indirectly, with play time.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event with observable consequences and devastating effects on children and families. This global occurrence highlighted and broadened gaps and disparities in the care of children with developmental disabilities, while simultaneously catalyzing innovation. Initially not seen as direct victims of the disease, children are inherently vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19, resulting in increased stress, anxiety, isolation, and health challenges. The impact is further amplified in autistic children and children with other neurodevelopmental considerations. These children are uniquely vulnerable due to communication impairments, comorbid medical disorders, poor adaptability and reliance on therapeutic interventions. Abrupt reduction in services and access to care during the pandemic led to compromised physical and mental health and missed opportunities for intervention at critical times which may have profound consequences further down the road. There are, however, bright spots in this story, as many autistic children demonstrated resilience in their abilities to adapt to these challenges. It is important to examine the effects that the pandemic triggered, address deficiencies and recognize new opportunities to improve systems of care to prepare for unforeseen futures. This review article outlines the impacts of the first year and a half of the pandemic on autistic children and provides tools for professionals, recognizing the ever- evolving nature of the situation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in substantial service disruption and transition from in-person services to telehealth for children with developmental disabilities. However, there is limited knowledge about the specific dimensions and consequences of the disruption and transition. This study aims to examine the extent of service disruption and transition, the experiences of client children and their caregivers with telehealth vis-à-vis in-person services, and the impacts of the disruption and transition on child wellbeing. The cross-sectional study collected data from parents of children with developmental disabilities using an online survey. McNemar’s tests were used to compare service changes before and after the pandemic outbreak, and multivariate analyses were used to examine how service changes were associated with child wellbeing.

Extensive evidence links adverse experiences during childhood to a wide range of negative consequences in biological, socioemotional, and cognitive development. Unpredictability is a core element underlying most forms of early adversity; it has been a focus of developmental research for many years and has been receiving increasing attention recently. This article proposes a conceptual model to describe how unpredictable and adverse early experiences affect children’s neurobiological, behavioral, and psychological development in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders commonly have sleep problems and higher screen time compared with their typically developing peers. Relationships of their media use to sleep are unknown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seventy-five caregivers/parents of children ages 5–12 years with neurodevelopmental disorders completed surveys during the pandemic, reporting average child media use of 3.35 hours/day (SD = 0.36) and sleep duration of 9.22 hours (SD = 1.27). Media use duration was not significantly related to any sleep outcomes in the total sample. Unexpectedly, in subgroup analyses with COVID-19 exposure/distress variables, greater media use duration significantly related to less sleep-related impairment (p = .012) and disturbance (p = .0004). Clinical implications are that media use/sleep plans should be individually tailored for these at-risk children.

The Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has created a major shift from onsite examination evaluations in all but the most critical cases to telemedicine visits via secure online portals. The ability to track graduates of neonatal intensive care who are at increased risk for developmental deficits is essential in order to provide early targeted interventions. Thus, there was a critical need to adapt in situ cognitive, language and behavior evaluations of these children to an online testing model that could provide reliable findings, particularly in identifying children with apparent or obvious developmental issues. This brief report describes the effort to develop online assessments of cognitive and language development of high-risk infants at 18 months post-conceptual age, 3 years and 6 years old.