Is wearing a mask affecting our children's development?
Sunday Feb. 14, 2021
Masks could affect children's development
For adults, the need to wear a mask can be inconvenient. For children it could be more serious. Masks disguise key cues in our expressions, making it harder to read someone’s face, and there is growing evidence that this could be affecting child development.
Child carers who wear masks while at work say it is difficult to establish a relationship of trust with children because they have to conceal their mouths.
Infants need to see faces
Professor Myowa Masako specializes in the human brain and psychological development at Kyoto University Graduate School of Education and Faculty of Education. She says adults must be especially careful about interacting with infants from when they are born until they are about a year old. That’s the age at which babies are studying people’s faces and learning expressions...