Annual Research Review: How did COVID-19 affect young children's language environment and language development? A scoping review

Abstract

A diverse body of research conducted since the start of Covid-19 has investigated the impact of the pandemic on children's environments and their language development. This scoping review synthesises the peer-reviewed research literature on this topic between 2020 and 2023. Following the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews, we searched five databases for studies that fulfilled the following inclusion criteria: studies with neurotypical (monolingual or multilingual) 0-6-year-old children; studies focusing on any area of language development, including sources describing literacy or educational practices that impacted language development; studies focusing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with no restrictions of geographical location or language used by participants. Ninety-four eligible studies were identified for review. The extracted data were synthesised using frequency tables and narrative descriptions. Eligible studies used a wide range of data collection periods, methods, research sites, sample ages, sizes, and roles to fulfil 15 broad aims. They show that children's language-learning environments were significantly impacted, with variability over time and across the socioeconomic spectrum. Together they investigated diverse language domains, as well as several home, educational, and demographic factors that were hypothesised to impact children's language development. Of those studies that focused on language outcomes, most converge to suggest a decline in typical expectations of children's language development, including their social communication, vocabulary, morphosyntax, literacy, and language of schooling, as well as general communication skills, school readiness, and other areas of academic progress. Our synthesis suggests that children's language and environment were significantly impacted by COVID-19. This scoping review will support families, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working with pandemic-era children to further understand the effects of the pandemic on children's development.