Americans have been arguing about pandemic restrictions for two years, and the debate is particularly fraught among parents of small children, for good reasons. While measures such as masking and isolation mean temporary discomfort or inconvenience for most people, their consequences for still-developing young children are more mysterious, and possibly more significant and lasting.
Children with speech or language disorders offer perhaps the clearest example of these murky trade-offs. Pandemic restrictions vary by state, county, and school district, but I spoke with parents in California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, Iowa, and Maryland who said their children’s speech therapy has been disrupted—first by the loss of in-person therapy and then by masking requirements, in places that have them.
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