Scientists at Brown University in Rhode Island have found that children born in March 2020 have poorer cognitive, verbal and motor skills, according to the Daily Mail. It is noted that such children may also have a lower IQ due to a decrease in social interaction amid the pandemic.
The average IQ of children aged 3 months to 3 years fell from 100 in the decade before the pandemic to 79 during it. For boys from poor families, the decline in this indicator was even more serious. The study involved 672 children. All babies were born full-term and were white in origin.
It is emphasized that a factor in reducing the level of intelligence could be stress among parents during a pandemic, because they had to spend a lot of time at home. The wearing of masks by parents is also a negative factor, as children lose the ability to “read” the feelings and opinions of their parents through facial expressions.
“The results highlight that even in the absence of direct SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID disease, environmental changes associated with the COVID pandemic significantly and negatively affect the development of infants and children,” the study authors concluded.
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