January 29, 2024

Singapore saw a surge in the rate of COVID-19 infections towards the end of 2023 and residents were encouraged to start wearing masks again in crowded places to prevent the spread of the disease. Mask-wearing has normalised in the past few years, becoming commonplace in schools and workplaces.

As a result, children have had to approach language-learning while wearing masks. Although limited research has been conducted on the impact of face coverings on children’s language comprehension abilities, previous research suggests that the kind of face masks used has different implications on the children’s language-learning. Associate Professor Leher Singh (NUS Psychology) studies how various face coverings (surgical masks and transparent face shields) affect language comprehension in bilingual children in the article ‘Effects of face masks on language comprehension in bilingual children’ (Infancy, 2023).

A/P Singh conducted the research in Singapore, studying a group of 28 three-year-old English-Mandarin bilingual children. The research showed that the children had no issues recognising English words when speakers spoke through a surgical mask or without a mask, whereas, the children struggled to recognise the words when speakers spoke with transparent face shields. On the other hand, the children could recognise Mandarin words when presented without a mask, through a surgical mask, and even through a transparent face shield. This suggests that there are distinct characteristics of both English and Chinese that lead to different effects when spoken through a transparent face shield. This also reveals that face coverings like surgical masks do not significantly impede spoken word recognition in young bilingual children.

Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12543