Caspian Journal of Pediatrics

Background and Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting social restrictions have significantly changed the developmental atmosphere of young children, especially children aged 1-3 years, which is a critical period for social and linguistic development. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects on the linguistic and socio-emotional development of children aged 3-6 years who were affected during the pandemic at the age of 1-3 years.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was done on 400 eligible children aged 3-6 years, epidemiologic information and anthropometric measurements were obtained, and parents/caregivers were interviewed, using a self-developed internally validated questionnaire. The socio-emotional development and language development of eligible children were assessed using validated instruments, namely the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Language Evaluation Scale Trivandrum (LEST), respectively. The responses were recorded, and the results were analyzed using SPSS 23.
Findings: The mean age was 5.143 +/-0.85 years.  Speech delay was present in 276 (69%) of the children in the study. The SDQ prosocial score was ‘low’ and ‘very low’ in a large proportion of children who used gadgets for an average of 2-4 hours per day (p = 0.00001). The strength of the correlation was high. The SDQ difficulty score was also ‘high’ and ‘very high’ for a significantly larger proportion of children who used gadgets for an average of 2-4 hours per day (p = 0.032).
Conclusion: Increased gadget use and reduced peer interaction during the pandemic were associated with negative impacts on preschool children’s language and socio-emotional development.