Did the COVID pandemic stunt kids’ development?

SciFri SciFri • Sep 29, 2026

Audio Brief

Show transcript
Are the kids actually okay after the COVID pandemic? Host Flora Lichtman asks this urgent question in an interview with Georgetown University professor Doctor Anna Johnson and Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Doctor Stephanie Jones, who examine a special issue of the journal Child Development. Why the kids are mostly okay in mental health and academics. Despite widespread fear of permanent damage, zero of the seventeen studies across six countries showed permanent developmental stunting once regular routines returned. Doctor Johnson breaks down the numbers: out of nine mental health studies, only one found large negative effects and two actually found improvements, while none of the seven academic studies found large negative effects. This encouraging picture looks very different from the alarming headlines we saw early on, which brings us to how following the exact same children over time changes the story. The two thousand twenty two National Assessment of Educational Progress simply compared that year's fourth graders to a different group of fourth graders from two thousand nineteen. Doctor Johnson notes that without pre pandemic baseline data on the exact same kids, those designs cannot prove COVID caused lower scores, though knowing where kids would be today without the pandemic is essentially an unanswerable question because we all experienced it. When researchers did track the same kids over time, they uncovered a surprising drop in self regulation skills. Doctor Jones found that executive function, the core mental skills like working memory, impulse control, and flexibility that manage attention and behavior, dropped by nearly half a standard deviation, which is a massive statistical shift rarely seen in child development literature. Why math and self control are lagging behind reading. While reading and internalizing behaviors like worry and sadness bounced back quickly, math and executive function were much slower to recover. Doctor Johnson explains that parents naturally practice reading at home through bedtime stories, whereas they do not teach math as confidently and kids need classroom environments and peer relationships to practice regulating their behavior. How screen time and pre pandemic trends complicate the picture. Doctor Jones suspects that lingering screen use affects executive function, explicitly hedging that she is not a tech researcher and does not have the data yet, though she would put a bet on it. Meanwhile, Doctor Johnson emphasizes that screen use was already rising and academic performance was already dipping before COVID. Who suffered the most, and an unexpected bright spot for some families. Across all seventeen studies, the strongest predictor of severe pandemic suffering was pre existing risk or vulnerability. Yet in Doctor Johnson's low income Oklahoma sample, one third of parents reported the pandemic's impact was neutral to positive because it relieved them from stressful, unpleasant jobs and gave them time with their kids. Remember not to assume children will bounce back from crises on their own, so pair their challenges with predictable routines and strong relationships at home and in school. As Doctor Jones puts it, resilience is not just a thing inside a person, it is about the challenge and the supports working together.

Episode Overview

  • Host Flora Lichtman interviews Georgetown University Professor Dr. Anna Johnson and Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Dr. Stephanie Jones about a fall special issue of the journal Child Development (co-edited by Johnson, Seth Pollak at UW-Madison, and Gaby Livas at UT Austin) examining how children are faring post-COVID.
  • Synthesizing 17 longitudinal studies across six countries, the researchers reveal that the overall outlook for children is "Mostly yeah, mostly yes" when asked if kids are okay, with zero studies showing permanent developmental stunting or flatlining once regular routines resumed.
  • The discussion contrasts early, acute-phase cross-sectional snapshots and cohort comparisons (like the 2022 vs. 2019 NAEP) with multi-year longitudinal tracking of the exact same children from before, during, and after the pandemic.
  • While literacy, reading, and internalizing behaviors (worry and sadness) suffered smaller hits and recovered quickly, both math and executive functioning experienced substantial, moderate-sized setbacks that are proving slower to rebound.
  • Note on disclosures: The episode discloses sponsorship from Progressive Insurance (Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates) and Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Key Concepts

  • Broad Resilience in Mental Health and Academics: Across the 17 studies covering urban, rural, high-income, and lower-income populations in the US and abroad, 9 focused on mental health (1 found large negative effects, 5 found small or very small effects, and 2 actually found improvements), 7 focused on cognitive/academic outcomes (0 found large effects, 3 found moderate effects, and 4 found very small effects), and 1 study on infant biological aging found null effects.
  • Limitations of Cross-Sectional vs. Longitudinal Data: Early pandemic surveys relied on single point-in-time snapshots showing stressed parents and isolated kids, while the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) compared 2022 4th graders to a different cohort of 2019 4th graders. Dr. Johnson notes these designs cannot prove COVID caused lower scores without baseline pre-pandemic data on the exact same children, though she adds that knowing exactly where kids would be today without COVID is "essentially an unanswerable question because we all experienced COVID."
  • The Executive Function Drop: Executive function encompasses core cognitive processes—working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility—that manage attention, emotion, and behavior. In Dr. Jones's Massachusetts population-based study tracking children from ages 3–4 in 2017 to ages 10–11 recently, executive function scores dropped by nearly half a standard deviation after the pandemic began, a finding mirrored by moderate negative effects in Dr. Johnson's low-income, majority non-white urban Oklahoma sample (tracked since 2016 from age 3, where schools closed in 1st grade and reopened in the fall of 3rd grade) and one additional study in the special issue.
  • Why Math and Executive Function Lag Behind Reading: Literacy and internalizing behaviors bounced back much faster than math and executive functioning. Dr. Johnson explains that parents naturally engage in informal and formal literacy at home (reading bedtime stories or cereal boxes), whereas they do not teach math as confidently or consistently, and executive functioning requires classroom environments and peer/teacher relationships to practice regulation.
  • Confounding Societal Trends and Screen Time: While Dr. Jones suspects the lingering ubiquity of screens affects executive function—explicitly hedging that "I'm not a tech researcher, I don't—I haven't done a study about screens and executive function" and "I don't have the data and I haven't done it yet, but I would—I would put a bet on it"—Dr. Johnson emphasizes that screen use was already rising and academic performance was already dipping prior to COVID, alongside factors like grade inflation and shifting parent-school dynamics.
  • Pre-Existing Vulnerability vs. Unexpected Family Benefits: Across all 17 studies, the strongest predictor of severe pandemic suffering was pre-existing risk or vulnerability. However, counterintuitive bright spots emerged: in Dr. Johnson's low-income Oklahoma sample, one-third of parents reported the pandemic's impact was neutral to positive because it relieved them from stressful, unpleasant jobs and provided time to spend with their children.

Quotes

  • At 2:20 - "Of the 17 studies, nine studies focused on mental health and only one found large negative effects. Two studies actually found improvements, and I think that that's really important to acknowledge. Five of the studies found small or very small effects. Of the seven studies that focused on cognitive or academic outcomes, none of them found what we might refer to as large effects, right? So we have benchmarks in research for effect sizes, none of them were large. Three found moderate effects and four found very small effects. And interestingly, the one study we had on biological aging among infants found no effects at all." - Dr. Anna Johnson breaking down the top-level empirical findings of the Child Development special issue.
  • At 7:51 - "We found that children's scores on executive function dropped by nearly half a standard deviation, and that is something that you rarely see in child development literature." - Dr. Stephanie Jones explaining the magnitude of the cognitive regulation setback observed in her longitudinal Massachusetts study.
  • At 20:51 - "Resilience is not inside a person as just a thing. It's about these two things working together: like, what is the challenge and what are the supports? The lesson for us is like, how can we build the right supports for executive function, for math, for reading, for language, for parents who are facing, you know, all sorts of stuff." - Dr. Stephanie Jones redefining resilience as an active combination of adversity and external support systems rather than an innate trait.

Takeaways

  • Treat Resilience as Active Support, Not a Passive Trait: Do not assume children will automatically bounce back from crises on their own; deliberately pair developmental challenges with structured, predictable routines and high-quality relational supports at home and in school.
  • Target Recovery Efforts on Math and Self-Regulation: Because reading and emotional worry recover more naturally through everyday home life, educators and parents should focus intentional intervention on math instruction and classroom-based executive function practice (working memory, impulse control, and flexibility).
  • Direct Resources Toward Pre-Existing Vulnerabilities: When planning for current recovery or future disruptions, prioritize targeted support for families and children showing baseline signs of risk prior to a crisis, as pre-existing vulnerability is the primary predictor of who suffers the largest setbacks.