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THE NEWLY IMPLEMENTED use of masks by primary school children, third class and up, has sparked a heated debate.
Watching people’s faces, mouths and expressions is central to children learning communication skills. With opaque masks hiding half the face, is this going to have a detrimental impact on children’s development? Public safety is of course at the forefront, but parents are naturally concerned about this step.
How do children learn speech and language?
Speech and language skills develop rapidly during the first few years. Babies are hard-wired to learn communication skills including speech and language. Children learn speech through watching our lips, tongue, and mouth.
If we think of the ‘f’ speech sound, the visual component of learning this sound is seeing the front top teeth in contact with the lower lip. The typical development pattern is learning through observation. Therefore, we see children’s comprehensive skills developing ahead of their expressive skills.
Communication skills also include reading emotions, body language, gesture, and tone of voice. Babies as young as 10-months-old start to recognise basic emotions including happiness, sadness, and anger.
One study at Florida Atlantic University used eye gaze technology to track the movements of babies’ eyes compared to adults when shown a video of a woman talking. They found that infants aged four-months-old looked longer at the woman’s eyes, six-month-olds looked equally at her eyes and mouth while eight and 10-months-old spent longer looking at her mouth. By comparison, adults looked longer at the eyes. So how can we help prevent any negative impact?
Voice wellness and mask use
Mask users experience a loss of visual information, reduction in sound clarity and articulation and an increase in effort and voice fatigue. Mask wearers often report they have to speak louder or repeat themselves which can lead to vocal fatigue, hoarseness, or other vocal problems.
Tips for children wearing face masks
Masks can make communication more difficult. Masks muffle sound, inhibit lip-reading, and interpret facial expression. Children can quickly become frustrated if they are not understood so encourage your child to do the following:
Social and emotional development
The chance to learn from and interact with peers is key to our socioemotional development. The long-term effect of isolation and physical distancing on acquiring skills such as self-regulation and conflict management has yet to be determined.
Increased screen time and reduced social interaction are also of concern. With reduced exercise, and limited playdates and participation in clubs or activities as a result of Covid, it is likely that the social and emotional learning children are exposed to has also been impacted.
It may be speculated that regression will become an issue as learning opportunities are restricted. In my area of work, regression is a red flag and determining the cause of regression is likely to put additional pressure on the already strained waiting lists for speech and language therapy.
What can you do at home to help?
Children are very adaptable. They are also very perceptive and may need some extra support to deal with the anxiety and stressors caused by the pandemic. Try to address this by having open conversations in age-appropriate language to help children understand the emotions they are feeling.
Sticking to your normal routine as much as possible can help children relax as their day is more predictable and familiar. Reinforcing your bond can be hugely beneficial for both parent and child so setting aside 15-minutes a day to play with or read to your child can be really beneficial.
Five fun and easy activities:
This information is for general purposes and does not replace specific medical advice for individuals from your GP. Health care professionals seem to agree that masks should not be used on babies or children under two years old due to the risk of suffocation.
If you have concerns about your child’s speech and language development, you can contact a speech and language therapist for help and advice.
Kate Beckett is a Senior Speech and Language Therapist and is owner of Optima Speech Therapy.
We have known about this patent cliff for years, yet we have supported generic products who do not engage in R&D. The downside of that is that large Pharma companies are not investing in NPD because of falling revenues and we have no new drugs to take over. We have done nothing to encourage R&D and we are going to pay a heavy price unfortunately.
The pharma companies are not sleep walking into this and have been living with this kind of thing as part of their normal business risks for years.
The good ones will be bringing replacement product on stream and selling the patent rump to generic manufacturers as they free up capacity for new product.
It is a well trodden path
“with the country’s pharmaceutical industry currently generating 50 per cent of the total amount of the nation’s exports”
Merchandise exports, not total exports. Ireland is ahead of the curve internationally in switching to services exports (software, consultancy, financial services, etc) and they now constitute 50% of all exports, so pharma is – after some simple multiplication – about a quarter of total exports.
This is a relatively serious issue, not because it is unexpected or even because of the effect it will have on our export statistics, but because of the effect it will have on (a) corporate tax revenues, and (b) FDI decisions by pharma firms in relation to existing and new plants.
Don’t forget that there is also a generic pharmaceutical industry in Ireland that provide people with affordable medicines. Some of those people could not afford the medicines when it is not generic!
When I was in college I did my work placement with Eli Lilly and it was an amazing place to work. They really look after their staff; the (very subsidised) canteen was award winning and as good as any restaurant. They threw a big party for everyone’s kids at Christmas and gave them Easter eggs as well. They really do everything they can to provide a safe working environment; with schemes such as flexi time (where possible) and of course employees are well paid.
These are exactly the kind of employers we should be supporting/keeping in this country.
@Patrick The Cipramil/Lexapro, Losec/Nexium, Clarityn/NeoClarityn trick has been closed by European regulators.
Overall, this is not a huge issue as Pfizer bought Wyeth recently, as the latter have a better “pipeline” of new drugs coming to the market. Pfizer would have negotiated the price for Lipitor which allowed them to cover the costs of developing it. If they had spent the money on developing new products rather than on marketting, they might not be in the position they are now.
Anyway, can we see real figures of what is contributed to people and the economy, rather than the not very informative figures of what value was exported?
So do you not just alter the drug ingredients slightly, give it a new brand name, work the marketing magic and take out a patent on the new brand and you’re away again ?? Example is Cipramil which is now called Lexapro because the patent ran out. So the manufacturer used a different binding agent in the drug, put it in a new box and off they went again with a “new” product and a new patent. I’m sure there might be a few sweeteners offered to doctors as well to prescribe the new named drug ! So for these reasons I don’t see the expiration of some patents being much of an issue really. It’s cheap labour in Asia that’s more of a worry where major manufacturers move their entire operations over to India or somewhere at a fraction of the cost.
No this is now not allowed. It used to be but unless it’s a completely new formulation the FDA and EMEA will not grant licenses.
When we talk about Pharma exports being a quarter of our total exports…
…how much of that is real exporting and how much of that is part of the double Irish tax dodge?
More of a question than a comment but can patents not be extended?
A normal patent gives you 20 years. You can apply for an extra 5 years in special circumstances i.e. drug companies. Assume that all this has been well researched by whoever owns the rights to Lipitor
You can. The makers of Prozac extended their patent by inventing a new disorder based on PMS. They then made the pills pink, whacked the price up 300% and called it “serafem”. They also marketed it to dogs as “reconcile”.
Check out the documentary “Big Pharma, Big Bucks”, it explains it all :)
Here is another question, how much does the hse spend on these companies products each year?
a good few of the companies are/will merge with other larger companies so it is a concern that the patents are coming on stream but the industry is adaptable !
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