The Pressure on Our Preschool and Kindergarten Programs to Act NOW
This Blog reports the results of a number of recent studies and their descriptions of some of the delays exhibited by infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who have grown up during the pandemic. It then discusses some of the pandemic-related reasons why infants born during the pandemic appear to have nearly twice the risk of developmental delay—specifically in communication and social development—when compared with pre-pandemic infants.
It recommends evaluating individual children as needed, determining the pre-pandemic, pandemic-related, and pandemic-unrelated root causes of any problems found, and linking the evaluation results to specific services, supports, strategies, and interventions.
It concludes by detailing what early childhood, preschool, and kindergarten teachers, administrators, and support staff need to do for today’s Generation C children—supported in three areas by their schools and districts: Child Find, the use of Social-Developmental Histories, and the implementation of effective and compensatory educational services and supports.