Therapists Say Child Delays Worsened Post-Covid

Therapists at Lighthouse Therapy are seeing a troubling shift in the developmental challenges facing young children across Young County and surrounding communities, with delays appearing both more severe and more common than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mindy Ash and Christa Credors, co-owners of Lighthouse Therapy in Graham, discussed the trend during the June 4 episode of Olney On Air, the weekly podcast hosted by The Olney Enterprise and the Olney Chamber of Commerce.

“We’ve noticed since COVID a shift,” Ash said. “The evaluations that we’re doing on these children are more severe and more frequent than they used to be.”

For more than a decade, Lighthouse Therapy has provided speech, occupational and physical therapy services to children and families across rural North Texas. The practice serves children with a wide range of developmental challenges, including speech delays, motor difficulties, sensory issues and autism spectrum disorders.

Ms. Ash said therapists are seeing fewer children with mild developmental delays that can be addressed through shortterm therapy and parent education. Instead, many young children now arrive with significant communication and social-development challenges.

“What we’re seeing is different,” she said. “We’re not seeing much of that. We’re seeing a lot more severe delays when they come to us at young ages.”

Among the most concerning trends are children entering therapy at ages three and four with little or no spoken language. Some have only a handful of words despite being well past the age when most children begin communicating in sentences.

Others struggle to engage with therapists or participate in basic play activities that are typically used to assess and build developmental skills.

Ms. Ash said some children present with behaviors often associated with autism, even though they may not ultimately receive an autism diagnosis.

“They have very delayed communication — no words, few words, one to two words,” she said. “They’re very dysregulated. They can’t stay to a task for 10 seconds.”

Therapists also are finding it more difficult to establish eye contact, attention and interaction with some children.

“Typically developing children that have been exposed properly to social communication will be easy to engage,” Ms. Ash said. “It’s not hard to connect with them pretty quickly. A lot of what we’re seeing is just really a lot of effort on our part to get any kind of eye contact, connection and interaction in play.”

The causes remain unclear.

Ms. Ash and Ms. Credors stressed that they do not know exactly what is driving the trend, but they suspect the social disruptions that accompanied the pandemic may be playing a role.

“We don’t know in particular what that involves,” Ms. Ash said. “Whether it involves less interaction, more screen time, more screen time for the parents or the children. We don’t know if it’s environmental in that regard or something else.”

The therapists emphasized that the observations are based on what they are seeing firsthand in clinics throughout the region rather than on formal research.

The discussion highlights a challenge many rural communities face as children who spent their earliest years during the pandemic reach preschool and elementary school age.

Despite the increase in developmental concerns, Ash and Credors said early intervention remains one of the most effective tools for helping children improve communication, social skills and independence.

The full conversation with Ms. Ash and Ms. Credors, including their work with foster children and the services available to local families, can be heard on the June 4 episode of Olney On Air, available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.