Navigating the 'COVID Cohort': 10 Key Points for Teachers and Targeted Strategies
The cohort of students who spent their crucial early developmental years during the profound social disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique, widespread, and systemic challenge to educators. This isn't about isolated cases; it's a population-level developmental footprint.
For every teacher - from early childhood right through to those who will receive these students in intermediate and secondary school - understanding the nature and scope of these developmental lags is the first step toward effective intervention.
The research around Covid impact differs a lot between countries and there are a large number of correlation connections rather than causation. This blog is my way of working out what is in a teacher’s ‘hoop’ in regard to moving forward. The points will not be relevant for all students, in all countries. But it is a starting point for teachers to begin to talk about ‘what do I need to do.’
Here are the 10 most critical points about the so-called 'COVID Cohort' and what they mean for your classroom practice:
1. Systemic and Significant Developmental Lag
Expect a noticeable decline in early cognitive function across this entire group. Some research reports standardised assessments have shown an alarming average decrease of 27–37 points in early learning composites for infants born during the pandemic. A substantial segment of this cohort now falls into the range typically associated with clinical developmental delay (below the 16th percentile).
2. Communication is the Most Affected Domain
Language and communication skills have been the most consistently and severely affected area, with some regions in the world reporting a doubling of speech-language delay incidence. This includes difficulties in both receptive language (understanding complex instructions) and expressive language (speaking, vocabulary depth, and sentence complexity). Teachers need to prioritise explicit, language-rich instruction and interaction.
3. Delays in Foundational Skills: Motor and Executive Function
Beyond language, teachers will observe persistent delays in fine motor skills (the small movements needed for writing and manipulation) and executive function. These deficits are essential for school readiness, impacting handwriting, organisation, sustained attention, self-regulation, and problem-solving.
4. Environmental Stress as the Primary Cause
The core issue was not direct viral infection, but the severe and prolonged disruption to the early childhood environment. This includes parental psychological distress and the loss of high-quality social and linguistic exposure outside the immediate nuclear family. This created an ‘experience-dependent plasticity gap,’ where the developing brain lacked the necessary varied stimulation.
A friend of mine adopted a Rottweiler puppy just before Covid - Ted. She wanted Ted to be a friendly dog that interacts with strangers and enjoys being out and about and she had a trainer set up to work with.
Then Lockdown hit and they could not see the trainer. So the trainer trained her and her partner to work with Ted. They played loud 'social noise' through their TV and computers - coffee shops with people talking, lawn mowers, buses, car horns, people cheering… a real mix.
Her and her partner also dressed up as different people - wigs, hats, clothing, different deodorants and perfumes… all so that Ted interacted with “different people” each day.
Ted is gorgeous. His neurodevelopment was not only experience at home with his parents but included all the variety that would have been there if we were not in lockdown.
This was not the experience that our Covid kids had.
5. The Biological Impact of Stress
The intense, chronic prenatal stress experienced by mothers during the pandemic translated into measurable structural changes in the neonatal brain, specifically smaller volumes in white matter and the left amygdala. Because the amygdala governs emotional regulation and threat detection, this suggests a potential biological predisposition for difficulties with attention and socio-emotional regulation later on.
6. Socio-economic Status (SES) is a Critical Moderator
The adverse effects were disproportionately amplified in disadvantaged families (low SES). These children may have experienced greater financial and psychological stress, increased reliance on screen time, and a critical lack of enriched home learning resources. Targeted support and resources must be prioritised for these students to mitigate widening achievement gaps.
7. Socio-Emotional Development is Complex
While some studies showed temporary stability in socio-emotional health within the immediate family bubble, the profound reduction in non-familial social interaction is a major risk factor. Children missed crucial opportunities to learn social cues, emotional referencing, and conflict resolution from peers and diverse adults. Teachers may later observe challenges with complex social navigation and conflict.
8. Risk of Permanent Deficits without Intervention
Resilience is a factor, but the severity of the initial cognitive lags and the presence of neurobiological alterations strongly suggest these deficits may not be transient. Without sustained, aggressive intervention, delays in foundational skills like early language acquisition are highly predictive of persistent difficulties extending into later schooling and adulthood. We must act now.
9. Increased Screen Time is a Contributing Factor
Now if you know me, you know I love my screentime… but… lockdown policies caused a significant and marked increase in electronic screen time for preschoolers. This increased screen exposure is associated with neurodevelopmental delays and lower achievement of developmental milestones and may present in the classroom as reduced attention spans or difficulties with self-directed play.
10. Focus on Language and Trauma-Informed Care
The most effective approach is to focus on the care environment. Teachers must embrace trauma-informed practices that recognise chronic stress as the mechanism of impact. This means prioritising intentional, language-rich, secure, and regulated learning environments to help the cohort achieve developmental catch-up.
Practical Implications for Primary and Secondary Teaching
These 10 points translate directly into actionable strategies for your classroom:
Explicit Language Instruction
Over-communicate: Model complex language, provide robust explanations for vocabulary, and simplify instructions while maintaining rich language use.
Interaction is Key: Promote shared reading, book discussions, and group dialogue across all subjects. For primary teachers, prioritise 5 mins a week 1:1 per student, for secondary teachers aim for 5 mins 1:1 per student each fortnight.
Targeted Foundational Skill Support
Fine Motor: Dedicate class time to activities that develop these skills, even in older students (e.g., cutting, drawing, manipulating objects, building).
Executive Function: Actively teach planning, organisation, and sustained attention through structured, varied play and age-appropriate problem-solving activities.
Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL)
Actively Teach Social Skills: Do not assume these students have intuitive social fluency. Actively teach and model social cues, emotional regulation strategies, and conflict resolution techniques. Create a safe space for them to practice social skills.
Universal Screening and Support
Expand Capacity: Recognise that a larger-than-normal percentage of students may require interventions for communication and cognitive delays. School systems must expand their support capacity to meet this widespread need. We need to support working memory, executive functioning and slower processing speeds.
The challenge is significant, but so is the opportunity. By being informed, intentional, and language-focused, we can help this unique cohort not just catch up but reach their full potential.
For more information on how to use trauma informed practice in your organisation, contact Brooke on [email protected]
