Title : COVID-19 pandemic-related adversity, error-related neural activity, and cognitive control in children
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic introduced widespread disruptions to children’s social, educational, and home environments, often increasing exposure to adversity. Pandemic-related adversity has been broadly associated with differences in children’s general cognitive and mental health outcomes. Yet, few studies have examined the effects of COVID-19-related adversity on specific aspects of neural and neurocognitive functioning in children. Pandemic-related adversity may influence the amplitude of error-related negativity (ERN), which reflects neural activity underlying error monitoring, in children. The goal of this study is to investigate the associations of pandemic-related adversity with ERN amplitude and cognitive control in children. In addition, we will examine whether socioeconomic background and age at the time of the pandemic moderate these associations. We hypothesize that greater pandemic-related adversity exposure will be associated with altered ERN amplitudes and worse performance on cognitive control tasks in children. We expect that these associations will be stronger among children who were younger at the time of the pandemic, consistent with heightened developmental sensitivity during early childhood, and those experiencing reduced socioeconomic resources.
Participants were children ages 5-13 years (N = 112; 56% male; 83% white, non-Hispanic/Latine) living in a medium-sized city in the western United States. They completed one in-person study session between 2021-2025 that included electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings during a speeded flanker task (Lin et al., 2020). For each child, neural activity on incorrect trials was averaged to create a mean ERN. Children also completed measures of cognitive control, including the NIH Toolbox List Sorting Working Memory (Tulsky et al., 2014) and Dimensional Change Card Sort tasks (Zelazo et al., 2013), and the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) task (Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008). Parents completed the Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory (EPII; Grasso et al., 2020), which asks about adversity across domains such as social isolation, educational disruption, and household stress. The EPII Total Negative Impact score will be used in analyses. Socioeconomic factors, including family income-to-needs ratio and parental education, were also measured.
Multiple linear regression models will be used to examine associations between pandemic-related adversity (independent variable) and cognitive control task performance and ERN amplitude (dependent variables). Child age will initially be included as a continuous moderator; if the interaction is non-significant, it will be removed from the model. A similar analytic approach will be used to examine socioeconomic factors (family income-to-needs ratio, parental education) as moderators. Covariates to be considered include child sex and race/ethnicity.
Findings from this study will help us understand the ongoing cognitive developmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children. Focusing on a unique historic event that led to unconventional cognitive and social learning experiences for children, our results will provide a deeper understanding of early adversity and the importance of childhood sensitive periods. By identifying whether age and socioeconomic factors shape these associations, our findings will clarify which children may be most vulnerable to lasting pandemic-related cognitive impacts, information that can be applied to ensuring children receive effective interventions.
