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In early 2022, the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, many were debating the effects of masks and lockdowns on early childhood development. Internet rumors abounded, including one claiming that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) actually lowered the standard milestones for measuring childhood development largely because of the allegedly deleterious effects of pandemic safety measures, particularly wearing masks. One post claimed: In February 2022, the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) did release a statement describing updates to their developmental milestone checklists. The updates included Adding checklists for ages 15 and 30 months; now there is a checklist for every well-child visit from 2 months to 5 years. Before this, in addition to checklists for older age groups, there was already a checklist for children 2 years old (24 months). That checklist is on the CDC's website. The checklist for 24-month-olds never stipulated the number of words a child should be able to speak at that age, only that a 2-year-old says sentences with 2 to 4 words. (See archived versions of that same checklist from 2020 and 2017, for example.) The CDC specified the following in its Language/Communication Milestones for a 30-month-old child: The point about knowing 50 words was new (for any age group), and had not been part of the 2-year milestones on the CDC website prior to this addition. According to Dr. Paul H. Lipkin who assisted with the revisions, the goal of the checklist was to identify developmental delays early. The earlier a child is identified with a developmental delay the better, as treatment as well as learning interventions can begin, he said. At the same time, we don’t want to cause unnecessary confusion for families or professionals. Revising the guidelines with expertise and data from clinicians in the field accomplishes these goals. Review of a child’s development with these milestones also opens up a continuous dialogue between a parent and the health care provider about their child’s present and future development. It should be noted that according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), a child saying fewer than 50 words at 2 years old is a sign of a language disorder. ASHA released a statement about the updated milestones, expressing concern: That said, the CDC’s milestone revisions were already in development before the pandemic began, with a broad literature search underway in 2019. According to a research article detailing the process and philosophy behind the revisions, the new milestones aim to capture the 75th percentile, or what 3/4 of children are expected to achieve at a particular age, instead of the previously used 50th percentile, which was found to be less helpful for families and clinicians. The CDC’s milestones are intended to help parents identify autism and developmental delays in their children, and not act as a screening tool for medical professionals. The revised developmental milestones are written in family-friendly language and identify the behaviors that 75% or more of children can be expected to exhibit at a certain age based on data, developmental resources and clinician experience, their news release stated. As of this writing, no evidence has emerged that shows masking negatively affects childhood development, so the claim that the CDC intentionally obscured masking harm is incorrect. The AAP website states: A 2021 University of Miami study also found, Wearing a mask in school does not hinder a young child’s ability to learn language, even if they have hearing loss. Meanwhile, studies of the effects of a range of pandemic lockdowns on childhood development have shown mixed results. A study conducted by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) in the U.K. showed that the pandemic had a significant adverse impact on mostly vulnerable, low-income older children, and those who were from minority ethnic backgrounds. But the study emphasized that more research was needed on the effects of the pandemic on childhood development for children aged 0–5 years. A number of studies by an international consortium of researchers from 13 countries, including from the University of Oslo, the University of Göttingen, and University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, looked at the effects of COVID-19 lockdown on early development. Shortly after isolation began in March 2020, parents were asked to fill out questionnaires, and then contacted at the end of the lockdown. The studies found that despite having increased exposure to screen time during lockdown, children learned more words during the lockdown period in March 2020, relative to before the pandemic. This is potentially due to other activities that parents undertook with their children during lockdown. Another report on behalf of the International Society for Social Pediatrics & Child Health (ISSOP) included studies conducted across 22 countries, and a wide age range (0-18 years) and concluded that pandemic school closure and lockdown have adverse effects on child health and well-being in the short and probably long term. A January 2022 report in Nature detailed how varied the data could be: And one particular study by Brown University’s Advanced Baby Imaging Lab found that the pandemic-born babies they tested scored lower during early learning tests including for language, puzzle-solving, and motor skills. But other researchers argued that these tests were not necessarily indicative of longer term problems, and the findings are currently under revision. While the CDC did update its checklist to include development milestones for 30-month-old children, those changes were already in process before the pandemic began. The 50-word expectation was new and did not exist in older versions of the milestones. Furthermore, there is no evidence to date that masks cause developmental delays in children, and the evidence regarding the effects of lockdowns on childhood development has been mixed, so it's illogical to claim that the CDC obscured such information or revised the milestones due to the effects of masking and lockdowns. Given all of the above, we rate this claim as Mostly False.
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