Classroom language during COVID-19: Associations between mask-wearing and objectively measured teacher and preschooler vocalizations

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask-wearing in classrooms has become commonplace. However, there are little data on the effect of face-masks on children’s language input and production in educational contexts, like preschool classrooms which over half of United States children attend. Leveraging repeated objective measurements, we longitudinally examined child and teacher speech-related vocalizations in two cohorts of 3.5–4.5-year-old children enrolled in the same oral language classroom that included children with and without hearing loss. Cohort 1 was observed before COVID-19 (no face-masks, N = 20) and Cohort 2 was observed during COVID-19 (with face-masks; N = 15). Vocalization data were collected using child-worn audio recorders over 12 observations spanning two successive school years, yielding 9.09 mean hours of audio recording per child. During COVID-19 teachers produced a higher number of words per minute than teachers observed prior to COVID-19. However, teacher vocalizations during COVID-19 contained fewer unique phonemes than teacher vocalizations prior to COVID-19. Children observed during COVID-19 did not exhibit deficits in the duration, rate, or phonemic diversity of their vocalizations compared to children observed prior to COVID-19. Children observed during COVID-19 produced vocalizations that were longer in duration than vocalizations of children observed prior to COVID-19. During COVID-19 (but not before), children who were exposed to a higher number of words per minute from teachers produced more speech-related vocalizations per minute themselves. Overall, children with hearing loss were exposed to teacher vocalizations that were longer in duration, more teacher words per minute, and more phonemically diverse teacher speech than children with typical hearing. In terms of production, children with hearing loss produced vocalizations that were longer in duration than the vocalizations of children with typical hearing. Among children observed during COVID-19, children with hearing loss exhibited a higher vocalization rate than children with typical hearing. These results suggest that children’s language production is largely unaffected by mask use in the classroom and that children can benefit from the language they are exposed to despite teacher mask-wearing.

Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on pre-reading skills among Portuguese children

“…It is plausible that the particular outcome related to PA skills is interconnected with challenges encountered in remote learning scenarios, disruptions to established educational and communication routines, and reduced linguistic interactions, all of which can be attributed to the pandemic. Importantly, the social interactions between kindergarten educators and children changed during the pandemic (Crimon et al, 2022;Mitsven et al, 2022). These interactions typically encompass activities like storytelling, daily topics of discussion, socio-dramatic play, group social games, outdoor activities, and meals.…”

“…Furthermore, as several studies have suggested that using face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to additional challenges for children, impacting speech understanding and also speech production, it is also reasonable that this factor impacted PA development. Indeed, educators, teachers, and researchers have raised concerns regarding the adverse impact that the use of face masks has on the healthy development of children's social lives, their interactions with others, the growth of language and communication skills, including sound recognition and vocal self-perception, as well as the development of speech skills (Goldin et al, 2020;Wolfe et al, 2020;Atcherson et al, 2021;Green et al, 2021;Lipps et al, 2021;Swaminathan and Meera, 2021;Thibodeau et al, 2021;Frota et al, 2022Frota et al, , 2023Lalonde et al, 2022;Maftei et al, 2022;Mitsven et al, 2022;Orena et al, 2022;Ribeiro et al, 2022).…”

Mask wearing in Japanese and French nursery schools: The perceived impact of masks on communication

“…These differences could be in the way children react to the presence of a mask on educators’ faces, or also in how educators specifically modify their communicative behavior when interacting with them, maybe demonstrating some kind of specific compensatory mechanism. A recent study indeed indicates that educators might adapt their speech style differently depending on children’s developmental risk, such that measures of speech quantity and quality to children with hearing impairment showed a tendency to increase more than to children without hearing impairment ( Mitsven et al, 2022 ).…”

“…In Ribeiro et al (2020) , participants having to wear a mask while working reported increased difficulty in coordinating speech and breathing, vocal fatigue and avoidance of voice use compared to participants wearing masks only to perform sporadic essential activities. Thus, it is conceivable that prolonged mask wearing could alter the way educators speak by causing discomfort (but see Mitsven et al, 2022 ). Such a change in children’s language input could potentially have important consequences on their language development, as quantity and quality of speech and non-verbal communication are important predictors of young children’s language skills.…”

“…In addition, such effects could occur both regarding direct input to the child and overheard communication from interactions between educators. However, the little existing evidence that looked at the impact of children themselves wearing a mask in educational settings during COVID suggest that mask wearing might not impact children’s speech that much ( Mitsven et al, 2022 ), and thus, the jury is still out on to what extent children contribute to changed communication patterns during one-way or mutual mask wearing.…”