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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Developmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1430135

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on infants' development: Analyzing the results of developmental assessments at ages 10-11 and 18-24 months

Provisionally accepted
Takashi Otani Takashi Otani 1*Masaharu Kato Masaharu Kato 2Hisami Haraguchi Hisami Haraguchi 3Hideo Goma Hideo Goma 4
  • 1 Kyoto Koka Women's University, Ukyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan
  • 2 Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Kyōto, Japan
  • 3 Other, Fukuoka, Japan
  • 4 Other, Himeji, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on infant development. The study investigated the development of infants at 10-11 months of age between 2020 and 2023 by using the Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development-2020, an individualized developmental scale, and the Kinder Infant Developmental Scale (KIDS), a developmental questionnaire. We compared the results of the Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development-2020 (KSPD2020) with those of a pre-pandemic developmental research and compared the developmental age of KIDS with children's chronological age. Moreover, the same developmental research was conducted again on the same children at 18-24 months of age. Developmental age (DA) for receptive language and expressive language was lower in the KIDS compared to chronological age (CA) in the investigation at 10-11months. However, in the investigation at 18-24 months, there were no areas where KIDS' DA was lower than CA, and DA in the areas of manipulation, receptive language, social relationship with adults, discipline, and eating was higher than CA. On the other hand, using the KSPD2020, there were no differences when compared to pre-pandemic data in the investigation at 10-11months. Furthermore, the investigation at 18-24 months showed that developmental quotient (DQ) was lower in the Language-Social (L-S) areas than in the investigation at 10-11months. The lower DQ of L-S in this study was also evident in comparison to the 18-24 months pre-pandemic data. These results suggested that to investigate the medium-and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's development, it is necessary to use not only parent-filled questionnaires but also individualized developmental scales. In addition, the finding that results may differ depending on the method of developmental assessment is considered important not only for developmental researchers but also for professionals involved in supporting children's development.

    Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, Child Development, Individualized Developmental Scale, developmental questionnaire, language development

    Received: 09 May 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Otani, Kato, Haraguchi and Goma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Takashi Otani, Kyoto Koka Women's University, Ukyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.