Caregiver-Reported Changes in the Socioemotional Wellbeing and Daily Habits of Children With Special Educational Needs During the First COVID-19 National Lockdown in the United Kingdom

Evren Morgül,Angeliki Kallitsoglou,Cecilia A Essau,Susana Castro-Kemp

doi:10.3389/feduc.2022.838938

Evren Morgül, Angeliki Kallitsoglou + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.838938

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Abstract

The implementation of social distancing measures (e.g., school closures) by governments worldwide to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has affected millions of children and their families. However, the consequences of such measures on the wellbeing of children with special educational needs (SEN) and their caregivers are not fully understood. The present study examined the socioemotional wellbeing and daily habits of children between 5 and 12 years old with SEN during the first national COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom. Participants were 995 caregivers between 18 and 61 years old living in the United Kingdom who completed a 20 -min electronic survey on child and family wellbeing distributed via social networks between July and August 2020. The findings showed that children with SEN were more likely to experience more emotional and behavioral difficulties during the lockdown than children without SEN. Children with SEN but without mental health difficulties did not have more behavior difficulties during the lockdown than children without SEN. There was a significant increase in screen time and decrease in sleep time for children with and without SEN during the lockdown, but children with SEN were using screens more often than children without SEN both before and during the lockdown. Finally, caregivers with children with SEN reported more difficulty with the confinement than caregivers with children without SEN, but caregiver and child poor mental health were likely to explain the difference. The findings show that the wellbeing of children with SEN was more likely to be negatively affected by the lockdown than the wellbeing of children without SEN. Caregiver and child mental health were likely to explain the differences.

Highlights

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on children and families across the world
A net or cross-over suppression refers to cases in which two independent variables and a dependent variable correlate positively with each other, but the inclusion of the two independent variables in the regression equation increases the beta of the most influential variable and changes the beta sign of the weakest variable; that is, a positive zero-correlation becomes a negative beta (Cohen and Cohen, 1975; MacKinnon et al, 2002; Paulhus et al, 2004; Watson et al, 2013; Salgado et al, 2019)
While difficulties were found across a range of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, their behavior was more likely to be affected than their emotional state

Summary

Introduction

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on children and families across the world. To cope with the rapid spread of the disease, governments worldwide implemented wide-ranging public health measures including lockdowns and school closures. The United Kingdom (UK) has been one of the seriously affected countries, which led the government to implement the first national lockdown in March 2020 to slow the spread of the coronavirus (Worldometer, 2020). Because education, mental health, and social care service provision were rapidly withdrawn (National Autistic Society, 2020), many children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families were left without access to their usual support (Coughlan, 2020; O’Connor et al, 2020; Pearcey et al, 2020; Asbury et al, 2021; Family Fund, 2021)

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