Children born during COVID pandemic have lower IQs, suggests US study

A US-based study suggested that children born during the COVID-19 pandemic have considerably lower verbal, motor, and general cognitive functions than children born before the pandemic. Furthermore, the study found that boys and children from lower-income families were the most affected.

Intelligence quotient in children dropped

The study also found that even in the absence of direct SARS-CoV-2 infection, the COVID-19 pandemic's environmental alterations have a significant and unfavourable impact on newborn and child development, according to the report, which has yet to be peer-reviewed.

The typical Intelligence Quotient score on standardised tests for children aged three months to three years old was roughly 100 before the pandemic, but it dropped to 78 for children born during the pandemic, said reports. The lack of stimulation and contact at home, according to lead study author Sean Deoni, associate professor of paediatrics (research) at Brown University, is the most likely cause of declining scores.

COVID-induced restrictions worsened matters

The dual duty of childcare and work has exacerbated the strain on parents, particularly mothers, who were allowed to work from home and were not facing furlough or job loss. This has resulted in increased parental stress and anxiety. Given that this data is from a relatively affluent portion of the United States, where social assistance and unemployment benefits are substantial, it needs to be feared whether things will get worse in poorer sections of the country and the world, said researchers.

What is unclear from the study's findings is whether the impairments are temporary and will recover to pre-pandemic levels of play and interaction once work and school activities resume, and family financial uncertainty and mental health difficulties lessen.

Six hundred and seventy-two children from Rhode Island participated in the study. 188 of them were born after July 2020, 308 before January 2019, and 176 were born between January 2019 and March 2020. The children in the study were largely White and were born full-term. They also had no developmental impairments.

Picture Credit: ShutterStock/Unsplash/RepresentativeImage