Exploring parent-engaged developmental monitoring of young children before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Porter Novelli Styles 2019 and 2021

BACKGROUND: Early identification of developmental delays may have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Parental engagement in developmental monitoring is a key component to successfully identifying developmental concerns. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this project was to understand whether parental engagement in developmental monitoring changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, from Spring 2019 to Fall 2021. METHODS: Survey data were obtained from 2019 SpringStyles and 2021 FallStyles Porter Novelli Public Services ConsumerStyles cross-sectional surveys. Only respondents with at least one child under the age of 8 at the time of the survey were included in the analytic sample (2019 N = 403; 2021 N = 344). Participants were asked several questions about how they monitor their children's development. Changes in frequency of developmental monitoring from 2019 to 2021 were estimated using chi-squared tests. RESULTS: In both 2019 and 2021, 89% of parents reported engaging in any type of developmental monitoring. Within the group of parents who engaged in any monitoring, there were no differences across years in the percentage of parents reporting using the methods surveyed, except that a smaller percentage reported comparing their children to others in 2021 (25%) compared to 2019 (36%, p < 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Despite major disruptions to families' lives, there were no significant changes to parents’ overall engagement in developmental monitoring prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.