Neuroscience.com By tracking over 3,100 children in Massachusetts from 2018 to 2023, researchers found that post-pandemic EF growth rates fell below developmentally typical norms across all socioeconomic groups. This “cognitive stalling” helps explain the widespread academic and behavioral challenges observed in classrooms since the pandemic’s onset, suggesting that children now require systemic support to regain these foundational skills.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact young children’s executive function skills?
Executive function skills are a set of inter-related processes that support attention, self-control, and goal-directed behavior. Executive function has been linked to positive outcomes across multiple domains of development. The skills associated with executive function develop rapidly during childhood and promote longer-term health, academic success, and wellbeing.
Researchers from Harvard University were eager to learn how the pandemic affected children’s developing executive function skills across time.
Using data gathered from 2018 to 2023 as part of the Early Learning Study at Harvard (ELS@H), a longitudinal, population-based and representative study of children’s development conducted in Massachusetts, the researchers analyzed a sample of over 3,100 children from age 3 to 11.