Pandemic babies struggle to understand facial expressions, the education watchdog has warned today.
An Ofsted early years briefing, based on inspections of 70 providers in January and February, found some children have "limited vocabulary" while "some babies have struggled to respond to basic facial expressions".
Wearing face masks continued to have a negative impact on young children's language and communication skills, it said.
"Children turning two years old will have been surrounded by adults wearing masks for their whole lives and have therefore been unable to see lip movements or mouth shapes as regularly," the briefing warned.
Ofsted Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman warned the Covid crisis had created "some lingering challenges" for children.
She said: "I'm particularly worried about younger children's development, which, if left unaddressed, could potentially cause problems for primary schools down the line.”
The report said that “some providers have reported that delays to children's speech and language development have led to them not socialising with other children as readily as they would have expected previously”.
Children have also missed out on conversations or hearing stories, with one provider commenting that young children seemed to have spent more time on screens and had started to use accents and voices from the programmes they had watched.
Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson blasted inadequate action taken to help children catch up.
She told Times Radio: "When schools were closed to most children, almost two years ago, that was the point at which planning should have been happening to make up for what came afterwards, to make up for that lost time and to make sure that the support was put in place - that was never properly done.
"Had I been secretary of state for education that would have been my number one priority, to make sure that we got that priority plan and the support that children would need given the time they have spent away from school."
A Department for Education spokesman said: "Our ambitious recovery plan continues to roll out across the country, with nearly £5 billion invested in high quality tutoring, world class training for teachers and early years practitioners, additional funding for schools, and extending time in colleges by 40 hours a year.
"We have simplified the National Tutoring Programme to reach as many pupils as possible, with funding going directly to schools from next year. The Nuffield Early Language Intervention Programme is also being used by the majority of schools to improve language skills of reception-age children."
