Does masking affect child language performance? (Surrain et al., 2023)

Purpose: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has prompted changes to child assessment procedures in schools such as the use of face masks by assessors. Research with adults suggests that face masks diminish performance on speech processing and comprehension tasks, yet little is known about how assessor masking affects child performance. Therefore, we asked whether assessor masking impacts children’s performance on a widely used, individually administered oral language assessment and if impacts vary by child home language background.Method: A total of 96 kindergartners (5–7 years old, n = 45 with a home language other than English) were administered items from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool–Second Edition Recalling Sentences subtest under two conditions: with and without the assessor wearing a face mask. Regression analysis was used to determine if children scored significantly lower in the masked condition and if the effect of masking depended on home language background.Results: Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence that students scored systematically differently in the masked condition. Children with a home language other than English scored lower overall, but masking did not increase the gap in scores by language background.Conclusions: Our results suggest that children’s performance on oral language measures is not adversely affected by assessor masking and imply that valid measurements of students’ language skills may be obtained in masked conditions. While masking might decrease some of the social determinants of communication (e.g., recognition of emotions), masking in this experiment did not appear to detract from children’s ability to hear and immediately recall verbal information.Supplemental Material S1. Multiple regression predicting odd items sum score as a function of Group A (masked) and Group A by sentence comprehension interaction, as a continuous and a dichotomized variable.Supplemental Material S2. Multiple regression predicting even items sum score as a function of Group B (masked) and Group B by sentence comprehension interaction, as a continuous and a dichotomized variable.Supplemental Material S3. Multiple regression predicting odd items sum score as a function of Group A (masked), controlling for study condition.Supplemental Material S4. Multiple regression predicting even items sum score as a function of Group B (masked), controlling for study condition.Supplemental Material S5. Testing interactions between group and home language, controlling for study condition.Surrain, S., Mesa, M. P., Assel, M. A., & Zucker, T. A. (2023). Does assessor masking affect kindergartners’ performance on oral language measures? A COVID-19 Era experiment with children from diverse home language backgrounds. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(4), 1323–1332. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00197

研究背景与目的：持续蔓延的新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情推动学校儿童评估流程发生变革，例如评估人员需佩戴口罩。针对成人的研究表明，口罩会降低个体在言语处理与理解任务中的表现，但目前关于评估人员佩戴口罩如何影响儿童的评估表现，相关研究仍较为匮乏。因此本研究旨在探讨：评估人员佩戴口罩是否会影响儿童在一项广泛使用的个体化施测口语语言评估中的表现，且该影响是否因儿童家庭语言背景不同而存在差异。

研究方法：本研究共纳入96名5~7岁幼儿园儿童（其中45名儿童的家庭语言为非英语），分别在两种施测条件下完成《临床语言基本评估学龄前第二版（Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool–Second Edition）》的句子复述分测验（Recalling Sentences subtest）：评估人员佩戴口罩，以及评估人员未佩戴口罩。本研究采用回归分析，旨在验证儿童在佩戴口罩的施测条件下得分是否显著更低，且口罩佩戴的影响是否因儿童家庭语言背景不同而存在差异。

研究结果：与预期相悖的是，本研究未发现证据表明儿童在佩戴口罩的施测条件下的得分存在系统性差异。整体而言，家庭语言为非英语的儿童得分更低，但评估人员佩戴口罩并未扩大不同语言背景儿童间的得分差距。

研究结论：本研究结果表明，评估人员佩戴口罩不会对儿童在口语语言评估任务中的表现产生负面影响，这意味着在佩戴口罩的施测条件下，仍可获得关于儿童语言能力的有效评估结果。尽管佩戴口罩可能会削弱沟通中的部分社会影响因素（例如情绪识别），但本实验中，评估人员佩戴口罩并未损害儿童聆听并即时复述言语信息的能力。

补充材料S1：以组别A（佩戴口罩组）、组别A与句子理解能力的交互项为预测变量（分别以连续变量和二分变量形式纳入模型），对奇数项目总分进行多元回归分析。
补充材料S2：以组别B（佩戴口罩组）、组别B与句子理解能力的交互项为预测变量（分别以连续变量和二分变量形式纳入模型），对偶数项目总分进行多元回归分析。
补充材料S3：在控制施测条件的前提下，以组别A（佩戴口罩组）为预测变量，对奇数项目总分进行多元回归分析。
补充材料S4：在控制施测条件的前提下，以组别B（佩戴口罩组）为预测变量，对偶数项目总分进行多元回归分析。
补充材料S5：在控制施测条件的前提下，检验组别与家庭语言背景之间的交互效应。

参考文献：Surrain, S., Mesa, M. P., Assel, M. A., & Zucker, T. A.（2023）. 评估人员佩戴口罩是否会影响幼儿园儿童的口语语言评估表现？一项新冠疫情时代下针对不同家庭语言背景儿童的实验研究. 语言、言语与听力服务在学校, 54(4), 1323–1332. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00197