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Tailor caregivers' compensatory mechanisms for children from diverse social backgrounds.

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Studies should combine quantitative and qualitative data on individuals' behavior.

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Future research should track children over time to assess lasting vs. temporary impacts.

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Research should assess the effectiveness of compensatory mechanisms across different socio-economic contexts and developmental stages.

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Future approaches should enhance emotional recognition and empathy-building, as well as prioritize speech therapy.

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Further research should assess risks of masking for socially vulnerable children.

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This could require increased attention to mental health support in schools and communities.

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Some research shows masks don’t affect language or emotional growth, while others note challenges with emotion recognition and behavior.

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Need to conduct cross-cultural studies to investigate how masking is perceived.

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Masking heightens social anxiety, and teachers have difficulty interacting with students meaningfully.

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Children adapted to masks by focusing on gaze cues, while caregivers used clearer body language and communication.

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Masks hindered configural processing and fast mapping, delaying emotion recognition and language acquisition.

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Includes key abilities like language, cognition, and socio-emotion growth.

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The interpretation of facial cues can impair emotional learning and communication skills during a critical developmental period in children

This can have further implications on their social development

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Caution is advised when implementing mask-wearing mandates

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Mask-wearing has also been found to alter perception of trustworthiness and approachability

Bias toward masked individuals (new societal norms)

(Crandall et al., 2022)

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Difficulties interpreting nonverbal cues

Overt reliance on explicit verbal communication

(Wang et al., 2023)

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Peer to peer interactions are affected, since masks have been found to influence perceptions of friendliness and sincerity

Teachers can no longer gauge students' interactions and understandings as accurately

(Hanna et al., 2023)

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Masking results in limiting visibility of facial expressions conveying emotions such as warmth, empathy, anger.

Leads to limited ability to understand emotional contexts.

(Bourke et al., 2023)

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Lead to ambiguity and uncertainty in social, verbal interactions

(Barrick et al., 2021)

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Masks may act as a communication barrier, which could affect ability to learn and practice language skills

(Bourke et al., 2023)

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Increase in self-criticism

Increase in vulnerability

Increase in psychological distress

(Xia et al., 2023)

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Works with Canadian Alliance for Social Connection and Health

They aim to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of Canadians

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We created an evidence brief to summarize important topics in social health

The evidence brief will aid in informing future pandemic responses and contributes to GenWell's mission of creating stronger connections and building healthier communities across Canada

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Promote social health in communities across Canada

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Mask-wearing can be a short-term solution for anxiety but can reinforce avoidance behaviors and social adaptability long-term.

Potential for anxiety disorders

Possible emotion dysregulation

(Xia et al., 2023)

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Other research highlights challenges with emotion detection and social communication among children during the pandemic, particularly due to mask-wearing

For instance, masks obscure facial expressions, which are crucial for young children learning to interpret social cues, potentially exacerbating issues like acting out (externalizing behaviors) or withdrawal (internalizing behaviors)

(Bourke et al., 2022)

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According to some research, masks do not impair children's comprehension of speech or their capacity to identify emotions to a great degree

Studies show that children can still comprehend words they are familiar with when they are spoken through a mask and read most expressions on masked faces

(Bourke et al., 2022)

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State Rankings on the United States Collectivism Index

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State Rankings on the United States Collectivism Index

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(Vandello & Cohen, 1999)

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Historical and cultural settings have molded various experiences with mask-wearing during pandemics

Have impacted how children have adjusted to public health interventions

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GenWell is an organization that is made up of a collective of researchers and experts from various fields and backgrounds

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Fast mapping is an important strategy employed by children during language development

It involves using facial cues to map and generalize new words (Liu et al., 2024)

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Studies found that face mask use negatively impacts the fast mapping process due to auditory and visual barriers

As a result, mask use delayed language acquisition in children by reducing their ability to recognize key words and vowels (Flaherty et al., 2023)

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Language Development is Impaired Due to Face Masks

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Language Development is Impaired Due to Face Masks

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Facial movements also play a critical role in children's communication and speech development

Lip reading and articulation are especially important for this process

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Faces masks were found to distrupt configural processing making it harder for children to recognize certain emotions (Carnevali et al., 2022)

Happiness and sadness were the most difficult to recognize as these emotions rely heavily on the lower region of the face, such as the mouth (Chester et al., 2022)

Anger was the easiest to recognize as it is expressed using the upper region of the face such as the eyes or forehead (Ger et al., 2024)

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This strategy involves interpreting the spatial relationships between the features (how they all come together)

(Carnevali et al., 2022)

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This strategy involves focusing on specific facial features such as the eyes or mouth

(Carnevali et al., 2022)

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Importance of facial features in emotion recognition 

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Importance of facial features in emotion recognition 

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Two critical strategies of emotion recognition are used by children to process facial cues

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Example CDC/FDA Approved Transparent Mask

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Provides full view of the mouth which restores the most important facial cue for emotion and facial recognition

Particularly important solution for those with impaired hearing as it restores their ability to speech read

One study showed that use of transparent N95 masks improved the ability of deaf healthcare workers to identify facial expressions and emotions by 64.3%

(Chu et al., 2021)

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Technology was a useful tool to restore proper social development only when used in moderation.

(Lin et al., 2023)

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Use quantitative data on behavior and qualitative data from parents, educators, and children

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Compare outcomes in mask-normalized societies vs. mask-resistant regions to understand cultural influences

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Track children over time to assess persistent vs. temporary impacts of masking

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Due to past outbreaks like SARS and experiences with air pollution, mask-wearing was customary practice in some East Asian nations prior to COVID-19

Children in nations like South Korea and Japan were therefore already used to seeing people wearing masks

May have mitigated the negative social and psychological effects of the abrupt mask adoption during the COVID-19

(Zhang et al., 2022)

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In the United States, mask adoption was impacted by the societal emphasis on individual freedom

Collectivist states = prioritize the welfare of their communities -> show greater adherence to mask laws because they see mask wearing as a civic obligation

Individualistic states = less inclined to embrace mask-wearing -> believed it to be a limitation on freedom rights

(Kemmelmeier & Jain, 2021)

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Most important period for social development spans birth to six years of age

Social development encompasses linguistic, cognitive and socio-emotional abilities

For proper social development to occur, children must learn to predict and understand their peer’s behaviors

To do so: learn to interpret and use several key elements including smiling, imitation, language and facial expressions among others

(Likhar et al., 2022) (Soto-Icaza et al., 2015)

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COVID19 Cumulative Case Count March 2020

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COVID19 Cumulative Case Count March 2020

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(Animated Maps, 2024)

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COVID19 Cumulative Case Count January 2020

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COVID19 Cumulative Case Count January 2020

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(Animated Maps, 2024)

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Children had major disruptions to their play, social routines, and education

Resulted in long term implications for social development

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Mask requirements were implemented sporadically during the 1918 influenza pandemic

had minimal influence on the psychological development of children at the time

Suggesting that its effects were less likely to result in long-term social or emotional consequences

(Brienen et al., 2010)

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Mask-wearing has been around for centuries, but its impacts have been varying in previous pandemics and have continuously been shaped differently by distinct cultural beliefs, values and norms

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Studies have confirmed that children acquire social skills equally well in these online settings as they do in-person. (Ponti, 2023)

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Overview of GenWell: Emily

Introduction: Juliana

Impact of Masking on Key Social Development Domains: Emily

Compensatory Mechanisms and Adaptive Behaviors: Juliana

Comparison with Other Pandemics: Sara

Potential Long-Term Consequences of Masking: Ayza

Research Gaps: Sara

Conclusion: Ayza

References: Emily

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Kwon, M., Jang, E.-M., & Yang, W. (2022). Mask-wearing perception of preschool children in Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(18), 11443. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811443

Likhar, A., Baghel, P., & Patil, M. (2022). Early childhood development and social determinants. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29500

Lin, H.-P., Chen, K.-L., Chou, W., Yuan, K.-S., Yen, S.-Y., Chen, Y.-S., & Chow, J. C. (2020). Prolonged touch screen device usage is associated with emotional and behavioral problems, but not language delay, in Toddlers. Infant Behavior and Development, 58, 101424. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101424

Liu, S., Li, X., & Sun, R. (2024). The effect of masks on infants’ ability to fast-map and generalize new words. Journal of Child Language, 51(3), 637–655. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000923000697

Lyu, W., & Wehby, G. L. (2020). Community use of face masks and covid-19: Evidence from a natural experiment of state mandates in the US. Health Affairs, 39(8), 1419–1425. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818

Ponti M. (2023). Screen time and preschool children: Promoting health and development in a digital world. Paediatrics & child health, 28(3), 184–202. https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxac125

Ramdani, C., Ogier, M., & Coutrot, A. (2022). Communicating and reading emotion with masked faces in the Covid Era: A short review of the literature. Psychiatry Research, 316, 114755. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114755

Resende, M. A., Fonseca, M. L., Freitas, J. T., Gesteira, E. C., & Rossato, L. M. (2024). Impacts caused by the use of screens during the COVID-19 pandemic in children and adolescents: An integrative review. Revista Paulista de Pediatria, 42. https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-0462/2024/42/2022181

Ruba, A. L., & Pollak, S. D. (2023). Children’s emotion inferences from masked faces: Implications for social interactions during COVID-19. PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0243708

Shenoy, S. (2021). SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19), viral load and clinical outcomes; lessons learned one year into the pandemic: A systematic review. World Journal of Critical Care Medicine, 10(4), 132–150. https://doi.org/10.5492/wjccm.v10.i4.132

Soto-Icaza, P., Aboitiz, F., & Billeke, P. (2015). Development of social skills in children: Neural and behavioral evidence for the elaboration of cognitive models. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00333

Steinhoff, A., Johnson-Ferguson, L., Bechtiger, L., Murray, A., Hepp, U., Ribeaud, D., Eisner, M., & Shanahan, L. (2023). Early adolescent predictors of young adults’ distress and adaptive coping during the COVID-19 pandemic: Findings from a longitudinal cohort study. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 44(9), 1250–1280. https://doi.org/10.1177/02724316231181660

Sun, J. (2022). Child behavior problems during COVID-19: Associations with parent distress and child social-emotional skills. AERA 2022. https://doi.org/10.3102/ip.22.1882011

Wang, S., Han, C., Sang, Z., Zhang, X., Chen, S., Wang, H., Wang, G., Xu, Y., Lei, X., & Chen, J. (2023). Hidden Faces, altered perceptions: The impact of face masks on interpersonal perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1203442

Williams, W. C., Haque, E., Mai, B., & Venkatraman, V. (2023). Face masks influence emotion judgments of facial expressions: A drift–diffusion model. Scientific Reports, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35381-4

Xia, T., Xu, X., & Ding, S. (2023). A study of the relationship between social anxiety and mask-wearing intention among college students in the post-covid-19 era: Mediating effects of self-identity, impression management, and avoidance. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287115

Zhang, Y. S., Noels, K. A., Young-Leslie, H., & Lou, N. M. (2022). “Responsible” or “strange?” differences in face mask attitudes and use between Chinese and Non-East asian Canadians during COVID-19’s first wave. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.853830

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Animated maps. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. (n.d.). https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/animated-world-map

Barrick, E. M., Thornton, M. A., & Tamir, D. I. (2021). Mask exposure during COVID-19 changes emotional face processing. PLOS ONE, 16(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258470

Bourke, L., Lingwood, J., Gallagher-Mitchell, T., & López-Pérez, B. (2023). The effect of face mask wearing on language processing and emotion recognition in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 226, 105580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105580

Brienen, N. C., Timen, A., Wallinga, J., Van Steenbergen, J. E., & Teunis, P. F. (2010). The effect of mask use on the spread of influenza during a pandemic. Risk Analysis, 30(8), 1210–1218. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2010.01428.x

Carnevali, L., Gui, A., Jones, E. J., & Farroni, T. (2022). Face processing in early development: A systematic review of behavioral studies and considerations in times of covid-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.778247

Chan, T. K. (2020). Universal masking for covid-19: Evidence, ethics and recommendations. BMJ Global Health, 5(5). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002819

Chang, H. J., Min, S., Woo, H., & Yurchisin, J. (2021). Mask‐wearing behavior during the Covid‐19 pandemic: A cross‐cultural comparison between the United States and South Korea. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 50(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcsr.12416

Chester, M., Plate, R. C., Powell, T., Rodriguez, Y., Wagner, N. J., & Waller, R. (2022). The COVID‐19 pandemic, mask‐wearing, and emotion recognition during late‐childhood. Social Development, 32(1), 315–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12631

Chu, J. N., Collins, J. E., Chen, T. T., Chai, P. R., Dadabhoy, F., Byrne, J. D., ... Traverso, G. (2021). Patient and health care worker perceptions of communication and ability to identify emotion when wearing standard and transparent masks. JAMA Network Open, 4(11). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.35386

Crandall, C. S., Bahns, A. J., & Gillath, O. (2022). Do masks affect social interaction? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 52(12), 1172–1178. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12918

Crimon, C., Barbir, M., Hagihara, H., de Araujo, E., Nozawa, S., Shinya, Y., Abboub, N., & Tsuji, S. (2022a). Mask wearing in Japanese and French nursery schools: The perceived impact of masks on communication. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.874264

Flaherty, M. M., Arzuaga, B., & Bottalico, P. (2023). The effects of face masks on speech-in-speech recognition for children and adults. International Journal of Audiology, 62(11), 1014–1021. https://doi.org/10.1080/14992027.2023.2168218

Freiberg, A., Horvath, K., Hahne, T., Drossler, S., Kampf, D., Spura, A., Buhs, B., & Seidler, A. (2022). Impact of mask-wearing on child and adolescent Psychosocial Development: A systematic review. OUP Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckac131.043

Furumi, F., Fukazawa, M., & Nishio, Y. (2023). Can preschoolers recognize the facial expressions of people wearing masks and sunglasses? Effects of adding voice information. Journal of Cognition and Development, 24(5), 623–635. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2023.2207665

Ger, E., Manfredi, M., Osório, A. A., Ribeiro, C. F., Almeida, A., Güdel, A., Calbi, M., & Daum, M. M. (2024). Duration of face mask exposure matters: Evidence from Swiss and Brazilian kindergartners’ ability to recognise emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 38(6), 857–871. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2331795

Gori, M., Schiatti, L., Faggioni, M., & Amadeo, M. B. (2024). Lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic: Toddlers learn earlier to read emotions with face masks. Frontiers in Psychology, 15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1386937

Hanna, E., Martin, G., Campbell, A., Connolly, P., & Fearon, K. (2023). The impacts and implications of the community face mask use during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A qualitative narrative interview study. Health Expectations, 26(3), 1349–1357. https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.13752

Kemmelmeier, M., & Jami, W. A. (2021). Mask wearing as cultural behavior: An investigation across 45 U.S. states during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648692

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We will investigate:

Long-term effects of mask-wearing on children's social, emotional, and communication development

How reduced facial visibility influences critical areas such as emotional recognition, empathy development, and social interaction skills

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Despite recent discoveries, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the wider effects of mask wearing on infant development, which calls for more focused study to determine the crucial times when children are most susceptible to concealing difficulties and to provide age-appropriate solutions

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Potential Long-Term Consequences of Masking

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Potential Long-Term Consequences of Masking

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Due to limited research, long-term socio-developmental effects of prolonged mask are only implications.

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Historical and cultural perspectives to provide a broader lens to assess the varying impacts of masking on social development

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Advantages: Children are exposed regularly to the facial expressions of their peers and teachers. The variety of videos, online games and story times available online, exposes children to a variety of faces and social situations.

Disadvantages: Prolonged screen-time was associated with inattentiveness, hyperactivity and depressive symptoms in young children during the pandemic.

(Ponti, 2023)(Lin et al., 2023)

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Compensatory Mechanisms Implemented by Adults

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Compensatory Mechanisms Implemented by Adults

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Use of body language and gestures to reduce need for facial cues

Project voice and enunciate words

Clear, short communication helped improve children’s understanding

(Ramdani et al., 2022)

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Children learned to rely on new facial cues, such as eyes and gaze direction, to correctly identify facial expressions and emotions

As children began to rely on this new facial cue, their overall ability to correctly recognize facial expressions and emotions improved significantly

(Gori et al., 2024)

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Compensatory Mechanisms and Adaptive Behaviors

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Compensatory Mechanisms and Adaptive Behaviors

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How adults and children minimized the limitations imposed by masking during the pandemic to restore social development.

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Impact of Mask Wearing on Key Social Development Domains

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Impact of Mask Wearing on Key Social Development Domains

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Facial cues play a key role in the social-emotional and communication development of children

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The purpose and objectives of the review are to explore how widespread mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted children's social development.

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Mask mandates were implemented globally in response to the discovery that COVID-19 spreads primarily through respiratory droplets. For other air-borne or influenza-like diseases, masking was shown to be moderately effective at minimizing spread through a decline in the transmission risk for mask wearers. Despite their demonstrated effectiveness at minimizing the spread of disease, mask mandates are still a highly contested public health pandemic-response measure.

The main concern: Mask mandates may have negative impacts on childhood social development.

(Chan, 2020)(Lyu et al., 2020)