Jane Wilson (MMed, BMed, PGCert,) is a specialist in speech and language therapy, She has worked in schools, and community clinics and provides guidance to parents and teachers in early children’s speech and language therapy. In a YouTube video conference provided by ED Psych 4 Kids titled: “Speech Delay During the Pandemic: How to help Under 5s” Jane Wilson depicts the important behavioral factors in the pandemic that led to the increase in speech delay. In the video at 20 minutes and 39 seconds, Jane Wilson says: “Really importantly this reduced opportunities reduced exposure to new vocabulary, because we had few activities, restrictions in seeing extended family, and setting closures. And it has really counted because children learn vocabulary by repeated exposure.” (Wilson, 2021). According to Wilson, the lack of social interactions and opportunities for children because of the pandemic restrictions, has affected the decrease in the development of new vocabulary. As children do not get to hang out and participate in activities that will help their verbal communication. Another important quote is when she explains how masks have affected the visual part of speech development in young children: “For our young children what we know is that that visual feedback alongside everything that they are hearing, alongside their auditory, it is important also getting visual feedback from what you are doing with your articulacy…they are starting to see more and more children, especially this cohort, starting with very unclear speech, and I’m wondering whether this is part of this dampening effect of the mask.” (Wilson, 2021). The author makes a great point here making a reflection of the behavioral factors during the pandemic that lead to the decrease in speech development. The speaker illustrates the idea that wearing a mask affected the way children learned to speak during the pandemic, as they did not have that visual component of seeing others pronounce and articulate their words. The visual part when learning to speak is very important and Jane Wilson is correct with her point about wearing masks during the pandemic because if children are not able to see how a person is pronouncing a word, they will not be able to effectively articulate and create the exact pronunciation.
“Speech Delays during the Pandemic: How to Help under 5s.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Oct. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLN0aPgMDZM&t=1250s. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.
