Born in Covid Year - Core Lockdown Effects (BICYCLE)

The first five years of life are very important for the development of children's language and thinking skills. This is because early experiences provide a foundation for children's later learning. Children born in the UK in the past few years have experienced unusual changes to their lives that were caused by Covid lockdowns.

In this research project, we want to find out about the effects of lockdowns on the development of language and thinking skills in children. We will measure these effects as the children reach school-entry age.

Why is this important? We know very little about how lockdowns have affected language and thinking skills in children. Some early scientific evidence showed that learning word meanings could have been better for babies and toddlers during lockdown. Other evidence shows that many babies and young children were disadvantaged by lockdowns and are now showing difficulties with learning language.

Our research project will measure how children are doing with their language and thinking skills using fun and accessible games. We will see the children as they start school (age four to five years). We will compare children who were born during the first, strictest lockdown to two other groups. One group will be children who were babies when the first lockdown happened. The other group will be children who were born after all lockdowns had ended.

In this way, our study looks at what happens a few years after a rare and unusual event. Lockdowns changed birth experiences for families and they changed early parenting. Lockdowns affected access to healthcare, access to childcare, and support from friends and family in a way never seen before. One of the most important effects of lockdown could have been on early social interactions between babies, parents and other adults. These interactions are very important for the development of language and thinking. Knowing more about how early these early experiences affect language and thinking will help us support these children in the future. Families experiencing other challenging or unusual circumstances may also benefit from what we find out in this project.

We will also look at whether lockdowns had different effects on language and thinking skills for children brought up in families with different levels of resources (different socio-economic backgrounds).

Finally, we will interview parents to find out about their lived experiences of the first year of their child's life. We are interested in how lived experiences of early parenting changed for families before, during, and after lockdowns.

It is very important that we do this research now. Otherwise, we will never know how lockdowns affected language and thinking in young children. Knowing more about the effects of lockdowns will allow us to support these children during their school years and for longer if they need it.

In summary, we want to answer three important questions:

1) Do children *born-in-lockdown* have different language and thinking skills compared to children *born-after-lockdown* or children *born-before-lockdown*? Answering this question will help us understand whether extra support is needed for these groups to make sure they have the best chance to do well during their school years.

2) Do children from families with different levels of resources (socio-economic status) show different lockdown effects on language and thinking? Answering this question should help us to recommend support for those who most need it.

3) What were the lived experiences of parents and caregivers during the first year of their child's life? We would like to know if experiences were different for parents of children *born-in-lockdown* compared to children who were *born-before-lockdown* or *born-after-lockdown*. Answering this question will help us understand how parenting was affected during lockdowns, and what the most important changes were for parents and caregivers.