Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) during COVID-19 boosts growth in language and executive function

Abstract

High-quality, centre-based education and care during the early years benefits cognitive development, especially in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. During the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) was disrupted. We investigate how this period affected the developmental advantages typically offered by ECEC. Using parent-report data from 189 families living in the UK, we explore associations between time spent in ECEC by 8-to-36-month-olds, their socioeconomic background, and their growth in language and executive functions between Spring and Winter 2020. Receptive vocabulary growth was greater in children who continued to attend ECEC during the period, with a stronger positive effect for children from less advantaged backgrounds. Growth of cognitive executive functions was boosted by ECEC attendance during the period, regardless of socioeconomic background. Our findings highlight the importance of high-quality ECEC for the development of key skills and for levelling socioeconomic inequalities.

Not all babies are in the same boat: Exploring the effects of socioeconomic status, parental attitudes, and activities during the 2020 COVID‐19 pandemic on early Executive Functions

“…Variation in the capacity for parents to support very young children's development is of particular interest in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic. From March 2020 through to December 2020, access to nursery education as a potential leveler of early inequalities (Morris et al, 2017) was substantially restricted (DfE 2019, 2020, Davies et al, 2021). Additionally, during this period, parents were under considerable strain as they juggled the demands of caring for young children with work and/or home‐schooling older children, amidst health and economic worries linked to the pandemic (Shum et al, 2020).…”

Maternal depressive symptoms and early childhood temperament before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United Kingdom

“…Other studies surveyed mothers of school‐aged children, who likely faced an entirely different set of challenges during the pandemic, such as the pressures of school closures, home‐schooling and financial difficulties from reducing their own work hours (e.g., Racine et al, 2021 ). Indeed, in preschool children there may be additional effects on temperament that come from changes associated with preschool closures that could contribute to the disparity in observing pandemic‐related effects in early childhood, compared with school‐aged children—see Davies et al ( 2021 ) for a relevant discussion on the impact of pandemic‐related closures of early childhood education and care centres on young children's development.…”

“…Emerging evidence indicates that parents who were unemployed or from low‐income households reported higher anxiety and depression levels during the pandemic than those who were employed or had a higher income (McElroy et al, 2020 ; Shum et al, 2020 ). Additionally, research suggests that young children living in poorer socio‐economic circumstances may have been more affected by the pandemic unless they were buffered by available early childhood care support structures, compared with children living in higher income brackets (Davies et al, 2021 ). Overall, this evidence indicates that multiple factors beyond immediate family factors contribute to the impact on individual children.…”

The Impact of COVID-19 on Families’ Home Literacy Practices with Young Children

“…This, of course, was not true for all American families. Emerging research on the impacts of COVID-related ECEC closures in the UK suggests that loss vs. maintenance of outside-the-home care was more strongly correlated with the language development outcomes of young children from less economically advantaged homes with fewer resources to compensate (Davies et al, 2021 ). In the current study, families who were facing major health, financial, and childcare crises were not represented, and would not have been likely to prioritize taking the time to complete this voluntary shared reading survey.…”

“…We know from two very recent studies of the impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns that changes in care routines appear to have had a general impact on younger children’s language development. Davies et al ( 2021 ) found that with a sample of 189 families living in the UK, there was a positive association for 8- to 36-month-old children in the amount of time they spent in ECEC and their language growth from Spring to Winter 2020, such that receptive vocabulary growth was stronger for toddlers who were able to continue attending ECEC during the period. In another recent study of 1742 children across 13 countries, Kartushina et al ( 2021 ) found that 8- to 36-month-old toddlers who spent more time during the initial COVID-19 lockdowns (from March to September of 2020) participating in shared reading with their in-home caregivers, as well as children who engaged less in passive screen viewing, had larger increases in their expressive vocabulary size.…”