The COVID-19 pandemic has had widespread effects on various aspects of life, including the social and speech development of young children.1,2 We studied whether there has been an increase in childhood speech, motor, and cognitive development delays since the pandemic began. We first evaluated the rate of speech delay diagnosis by age two in 1,667,926 children.
We found that children who turned two years old between September 2020 and March 2023 were more likely to experience speech delays than those that turned two in earlier years. Compared to children who turned two years old in 2018, children who turned two in the last quarter of 2021 were 31.5% more likely to have a speech delay diagnosis, and those who turned two in first quarter of 2023 were 87.8% more likely. The increase in speech delays was observed in both urban and rural areas. The difference in speech delay diagnoses remained even after controlling for sex, premature birth status, and years of patient care documentation.
We also evaluated the diagnosis rates for motor delay by age two, cognitive delay by age four, and scholastic delay by age eight. We selected these ages for the analysis based on the likelihood that assessments for these conditions would have been conducted according to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Bright Futures recommendations.3 We did not find a significant change in the rates of these diagnoses after the start of the pandemic. However, because scholastic and cognitive delays are typically diagnosed in school-age children, additional impact related to the pandemic may remain to be seen among younger children.
