Could wearing a mask slow your child's speech and language development?

As New Brunswick's education and health departments continue to deflect responsibility for re-imposing masks in schools, the province's chief medical officer of health made note of a seemingly high percentage of preschoolers with communication issues. 

Earlier this week, when asked about re-introducing mandatory masking in schools, Dr. Jennifer Russell said she takes a number of things into consideration.

"We recently learned that 17.9 per cent of students entering kindergarten have communication difficulties right now, and that's as a result of data from the early years assessment," she said.

But are masks causing speech and language delays in children?

"Anecdotally, yes, we're hearing teachers and speech-language pathologists are reporting that there seem to be many more children with speech-language and communication needs," said Caroline Erdos, a speech-language adviser for Speech-Language and Audiology Canada (SAC)

But whether that increase has anything to do with masks is still too early to say, said Erdos.  

Monika Molnar, a professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in language development in children, agrees. 

She said the pandemic has prompted a number of studies on the effects of masks on the development of children's communications skills. 

While the full effects likely won't be known for a few years, Molnar said early indications are that masks "can negatively affect language development." 

Molnar said young children learn language by listening to the sounds and by watching the movement of the speaker's tongue and mouth. They also pick up on context from facial expressions. If the speakers are masked, "children are missing half of the cues." 

She said masks also restrict the way a speaker moves their jaw or mouth, thereby affecting the quality of the sound. Add to that, the muffling effect, and children aren't always hearing the purest form of speech. 

Molnar said it's important to balance the need for masks with the communication difficulties that result. 

"Two things can be true at the same tine: (1) we need to wear masks to mitigate the effects COVID-19 and (2) wearing masks can have negative effects on language/communication development," said Molnar. 

Erdos said that although masks can delay speech and language in preschoolers, the impact "may not be as great as we think."