Has the Pandemic Led to Infants Losing IQ? – with Sean Deoni, PhD

The COVID pandemic has brought on all sorts of changes to the way we live our lives. From wearing masks, working from home, stay at home orders, and restrictions on social interactions, the virus has caused untold disruption to the way our society functions. Although the changes COVID has brought to our schools and the lives of our school age children, it is perhaps less appreciated what changes have occurred for our infants.

It is a well known fact that our environment and meaningful stimulation is necessary for normal intelligence and brain development. Infants are completely dependent on their parents to put them in environments where they can maximally interact in the world. This interaction is what spurs on their brain development and social connections to others.

Early Learning

My guest today was Dr. Sean Deoni at Brown University described that the first 1000 days of a child's life are some of the most critical for its brain development. Babies interact with their environment and figure out how to communicate and manipulate the physical world through exploration. The less stimulation that is present, generally, the worse their neurodevelopment outcome is. One can use the Mullen Scales of Early Learning to test infants and young children on where they are developmentally on motor and language skills.

Concerning Findings - A Drop in IQ Equivalents

The lab at Brown University had been collecting infant and child development testing data for over ten years. Their findings generally fell in line with what would be considered 'normal' for children at that age. But suddenly, in 2020, their lab noticed a sudden change in the scoring for children. A massive loss in development scores (which are used as a proxy for IQ) were seen in infants born during the pandemic.

The losses were on the order of 22 IQ points or 1.5 standard deviations from the norm.  This was an incredible finding and one that they couldn't explain. The findings were more pronounced in those with low socioeconomic status and males.

Where was the drop?

One would expect that the drop in scores would be related to problems with language since we are now more frequently wearing masks. However, their findings were actually a massive drop in motor skills. This might explain why male infants were more significantly affected since early motor development seems to progress a little more in them than females

What's Causing the Drop?

Unfortunately, it is very hard to determine what is causing this decline in scoring for infants. The research team has been able to rule out a few factors like maternal stress or actual COVID infections. It is very probable that this is due to a general lack of physical interactions and stimulation for the infants with their parents and caregivers. Perhaps it's because of increased isolation at day care or parents working remotely at home and less capable to spending valuable time with their infants.

Limitations to the Findings

Whenever we get concerning findings like these we have to be sure of a few facts.

1. Are the results corroborated/reproducible: The University of Columbia did a similar study and found the same results. However, they don't have long term validation to their testing methods so perhaps this finding is an outlier.
2. Is this a representative sample: This study (and the one from Columbia) represent a probably skewed sample of families who live in urban areas and heavily rely on day care for their child care needs. It's possible that these findings would not be found in areas with lower levels of day care usage since parents probably don't interact that differently at home with their child.
3. COVID restrictions: PPE, limited social interactions, and masking all varied throughout the country. It's possible that one, some, or all of these significantly affected the results of child development. Perhaps masking and limited social interactions decreased infant and toddlers' physical play. Also, maybe seeing less relatives who would physically interact with the child led to lower scores.

How Permanent are these Deficits?

This is the million dollar question. Can the children recover from such a huge developmental deficit. It's entirely possible that they will just reach these milestones later in life and it will have no impact on their future intellect. However, oftentimes, if one does not catch up by 2 years of age or so, one never catches up  which could put these children at a huge disadvantage in academics, athletics, and the arts.

The lab will continue to follow the children but only time will tell whether they are ever able to catch up.