Nursery enhanced child development during Covid-19

Dr Catherine Davies in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies has been involved in a new project investigating how changes in sleep, parenting style, social interactions, screen use and outdoor activities impacted children’s cognitive development during the Spring 2020 lockdown. The first paper from that project has just been published in Infant and Child Development; Early childhood education and care (ECEC) during COVID-19 boosts growth in language and executive function, is available here.

The project was conducted in collaboration with researchers at Oxford Brookes University, University of East Anglia, University of Oxford and the University of Warwick. The project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of the UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to COVID-19.

The UK wide project focused on language development and the role of nursery in improving cognitive development. This longitudinal study followed a cohort of 600 children aged 8 to 36 months of age living in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. The children were enrolled in an online study at the onset of lockdown, to capture changes in their environment and measure the impact on children’s vocabulary size and executive function.

The role of nursery

The findings highlighted how the language and cognitive growth of children from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds were affected by restricted access to Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Children from less-advantaged backgrounds who lost access to ECEC during the pandemic were disproportionately disadvantaged by social distancing measures, risking their language development in addition to further benefits of good language skills.

Dr Catherine Davies commented, “The findings present a clear case that nursery can act as a buffer for the challenges presented by Covid-19. The more days that children attended nursery, the greater their growth in language and cognitive skills.”

This demonstrates the crucial role of access to Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) for development of key skills and importantly, for levelling socioeconomic inequalities as the advantages of ECEC on language development were specific to less-advantaged children.

The authors of the study go on to say that solid abilities in these areas are likely to have cascading positive effects as children move through their preschool years and beyond. To maintain these benefits for child development and for levelling inequalities, properly-funded, high-quality early childhood education and care is crucial.

Research impact & recommendations

To help inform policy on supporting families throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, evidence uncovered by the project was submitted to parliament for the COVID-19 Education Inquiry in March, 2021. The written evidence is available here.

The evidence included recommendations, such as financial support for ECEC settings to support additional operating costs resulting from the pandemic, and a commitment to clear and timely guidance to allow staff to provide high-quality provision with confidence.

Further recommendations were support for the wellbeing of staff, along with a review of training and progression opportunities within the sector to improve staff retention and increase recognition of early years as a skilled and valued profession.

Policy Leeds also produced a policy note to highlight these findings. The policy note, boosting early years learning during COVID-19, is available here.

To find out more about the project please contact Dr Catherine Davies or visit the Social Distancing & Development website here.