61 Delayed Language Development in Mexican Toddlers Following Lockdown During COVID-19: The Case of Peer Socialization

Abstract

Objective:Socialization is a crucial factor in children’s language acquisition. Lack of socialization could affect language development, causing a delay that can be spotted early by identifying neurological soft signs (NSS). This study aimed to compare NSS and language performance between two samples of children (pre and post-pandemic) since the lockdown carried out by Covid-19 restricted socialization in post-pandemic kids.Participants and Methods:Two groups of 30 children (aged 3 to 5 years old, ten children per age group; 50% boys and 50% girls) were assessed with the NSS and language subtest from the SNB-MX battery (Salvador, Tovar, Segura, Armengol & Ledesma, 2019). The first group was selected and evaluated before the covid lockdown; the second group was selected and assessed after the lockdown. Hence the second group of children was less exposed to socialization since schools changed to digital format. We compared the language performance of both groups.Results:Results include the comparison between samples pre and post-pandemic. Post-pandemic children performed lower in language skills. We also found a correlation between the language and NSS.Conclusions:We conclude that socialization is an essential factor in language development. Also, identifying Neurological Soft Signs could help predict language delay. We thank project PAPIIT IN308219 for sponsoring this research.