High-quality early care and education for low-income families: Toddlers’ cognitive and emotional functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

High-quality early care and education (ECE) programs are associated with positive outcomes, especially for children from low-income families. During the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown many of these families faced an abrupt halt to ECE. Here, we examined how toddlers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds enrolled in high-quality ECE programs in the United States during the 2020 pandemic (n = 48) fared on cognitive and socioemotional outcomes compared to a 2019 pre-pandemic cohort (n = 94) and a pandemic 2021 cohort (n = 132). Toddlers in the 2020 cohort scored significantly lower on executive function compared to toddlers in 2019 and 2021 cohorts. Toddlers in the 2020 cohort had higher ratings self-regulation compared to the pre-pandemic cohort, but not 2021 cohort. There were no differences on attachment ratings between cohorts. Findings suggest that the abrupt halt to ECE programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted US toddlers’ cognitive and socioemotional abilities. This underscores the importance of continued high-quality ECE for infants and toddlers from low-income families during disruptive times. Further work is needed to investigate the long-term impacts of experiencing an abrupt halt to ECE due to COVID-19.