[Health in the 100-Year Life Era] The Biggest Victims of the COVID-19 Pandemic Are Children

If Language Stimulation Decreases and Is Left Unchanged
Decline in Academic and Social Skills in Elementary Age
Customized Development Support System Needed

Shin Euijin, Professor of Pediatric Psychiatry at Yonsei University Severance Hospital.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020 and has lasted nearly two years, is now showing signs of coming to an end as life restrictions are gradually being lifted. However, this disease still restricts and causes tension in our lives. Aside from the worst cases where lives are lost to the infectious disease, survivors are showing clear warning signs not only in physical health but also in mental health.

In the UK, mental health issues such as depression and anxiety have increased among adults, particularly more severely among young people and parents with young children. South Korea is no different, with even suicidal thoughts among young people on the rise, prompting the government to struggle with countermeasures.

However, there are victims who cannot voice themselves and thus do not even appear in statistics: our infants and toddlers. From birth to age three, the brain’s structure and function rapidly change due to external stimuli. If emotional interaction, appropriate stimulation, and a safe environment from familiar adults around them are lacking during this period, problems arise in forming essential neural circuits needed for emotional regulation and communication.

In fact, children who have experienced severe neglect during infancy show significantly lower verbal intelligence, emotional regulation ability, empathy, and social cognition compared to healthy children, and if not corrected before school age, some functions grow impaired.

More definitively, if young children who have experienced reduced verbal stimulation due to mask-wearing and isolated lives during the COVID period are left as is, by the time they reach elementary school age, they may develop borderline intelligence around 70?80 IQ, resulting in difficulties adapting due to decreased academic ability and social skills.

According to 2021 National Assembly audit data from Representative Jeong Chun-sook’s office, 75% of daycare teachers report delays in children’s language development. This year, Nature published developmental studies conducted worldwide, including the US and UK, under the title “Pandemic generation,” providing scientific evidence that children’s language, behavior, and cognitive development have been delayed following the COVID outbreak.

The paper also offers a hopeful message that the infant brain has high resilience, so once the pandemic ends and society normalizes, recovery is expected. However, given that the changes in our lives due to COVID have lasted longer than anticipated and that we have not prepared proper policies to support children’s development, a bleaker future is predicted.

Even now, we must investigate how the language, sociality, and cognitive development of our infants and toddlers are progressing and provide tailored support programs to children showing problems to promote normal development.

Currently, pediatric and adolescent psychiatry departments in university hospitals and private clinics alike are overwhelmed with young children complaining of developmental delays, with appointments fully booked. While we were indifferent, the COVID pandemic has brought a crisis to our young children.

We hope that this crisis will become an opportunity to establish public support systems for the development and mental health of infants and toddlers, which have been neglected until now. If we leave young children with brain function development problems unnoticed, without their parents even knowing, and allow them to fail to realize their lifelong potential, our future will be bleak. Starting now, we must train relevant experts and properly create budgets and policies for developmental support systems to enable a competent and happy future.

Shin Euijin, Professor of Pediatric Psychiatry, Yonsei University Severance Hospital