Saturday 10 September 2022 03:25 PM Therapist says she's seen influx of 'COVID babies' who haven't hit milestones ... trends now

A New Jersey speech therapist says she's recently seen a wave of infants and toddlers 'unable to communicate' after being born during the pandemic - one of several now-surfacing consequences of school and day care closures seen over the past few years.  

The phenomenon, speech pathologist Nancy Polow says, is part of an concerning trend in kids born during or shortly before the pandemic, who are 'falling behind' on key milestones due a lack of social interaction during that span.

Compounding the crisis, adds the head of Milbun's Suburban Speech Center, when parents sought help, they were met with lockdown-related roadblocks, such as masking restrictions, the challenge of tele-health appointments for toddlers, and fear of in-person therapy. 

Now the restrictions have lessened, Polow says, parents are scrambling to address these failures, signing up for pricey speech therapy sessions to repair the damage done to their young - shelling out as much as $1,000 a month in the process.

A growing body of academic research also supports Polow's claims of children born over the past three or so years possessing weaker verbal skills - with many staying silent well past their first birthdays and in some cases, even their second.

'We call these children COVID babies,' Polow, a pathologist with more than 45 years experience, told NJ.com in a recent interview where she and several other speech experts warned of the rapidly emerging crisis.

'I have never seen such an influx of infants and toddlers unable to communicate,' Polow told the outlet Friday, for a feature story titled 'A Troubling Silence.'

'There's not anything else wrong,' she said of the kids who are pouring into the Suburban Speech Center, 'other than they lost out on the socialization.'

Speech is only one area where children are lagging since the pandemic, Polow says, with several other studies showing that 'Covid'-era kids are also seeing delays in other activities such as crawling and walking.

Verbal delays, however, are often the first sign of broader developmental issues, the expert warned - one of several now-surfacing repercussions of the restrictions.

Many families, in turn, turned to private therapy practices such as Polow's - which can cost more than $1,000 a month and are not commonly covered by insurance.

Those sessions, Polow says, in many cases turned out unfruitful, due to issues such as masking restrictions, tele-health challenged for toddlers, and a lack of willing in-person doctors. 

The reason for speech delays, experts say, is fewer interactions with adults and other children during the pandemic. 

Now Polow says she and her staff is working with countless kids and parents to regain these losses over the next few months, and get the 'Covid babies' back on track.

'If we get them young enough, then they become age appropriate,' Polow said. 'Then they reach their milestones.' 

Meanwhile, she and other experts warn that many other children amid the furor over the sudden coronavirus outbreak had slipped through the cracks, not only with speech delays but with developmental issues such as autism.

This, director of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Janice Prontnicki said, was due to babies spending less time around family and child care providers, who might have noticed a delay or confirmed a parent’s fears. 

'We were missing kids that should have been picked up sooner,' Prontnicki told NJ.com.

Meanwhile, The Suburban Speech Center, Polow says is still seeing 'lots and lots' of COVID babies, Polow said. It’s also seen an increase in what she called 'COVID children' - kids who missed two years of preschool or sent their entire kindergarten year in virtual learning, according to the therapist.

'Parents do feel guilty, and I think their biggest question that they are asking is, 'Should I have come sooner?' she said, adding that the damage can always be undone with the proper treatment.

That treatment, however, many not be so easily accessible for lower-income families, said Ediza Lahoz Valentino, a social worker at the Jane H. Booker Family Health Center in Neptune.

'Some of them don’t have access to a computer or a tablet or a smartphone to be able to access therapy virtually,' Lahoz Valentino said. 'That in itself was challenging.' 

Speech problems are also cropping up in preschoolers whose early social needs were put on the back burner during the chaos and fear generated by COVID-19, speech and health experts said.

Scientists including Dr Dana Suskind, a surgeon at Chicago University, suggest a lack of social contact with family and relatives due to restrictions is behind the shift.

The long-term impact of the pandemic on children is not yet clear, but experts have warned keeping children away from their peers for so long with lockdowns is bound to have harmed their development.

A growing body of academic research supports these claims.

Speaking to USA Today, Spencer explained that normally babies begin to walk and become more physically active during the spring and summer months.

But since Covid hit, she has not seen this occurring as often. She said: 'They're still growing, because they always grow, but it's at a

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