Okay so I get that this is a really important result, but I worry about the reflexive, reductionist media narrative that's forming around this as potentially be

Okay so I get that this is a really important result, but I worry about the reflexive, reductionist media narrative that's forming around this as potentially being even more damaging to these children then the pandemic itself. If anything this just goes to show how dependent these kinds of metrics are on socialization and specific cultural factors. Pegging these children as simply "unintelligent" could be a tragically self fulfilling way to take this result, and sadly I think the ball is already rolling on that. There's no question that the pandemic will have huge effects on the cognitive, social and emotional development of children of all ages, and I get the concern here. But to just collapse all of these developmental differences down to this kind of hand wavey "they're not that bright" pathology really misses an opportunity to discover and affirm the unique sensitivities and strengths that these children might have the potential to lean into. Not to mention that they are currently in the process of learning all the stuff they missed out on during quarantine. Yes, in a different order than usual. But no that doesn't mean they're somehow deficient, it means they're going to have to rely on sensibilities that may typically be unfamiliar to those of us who have been socialized in more conventional ways. I've met some pandemic babies and they all had this calm, quiet sense of fascination and awe in being present with people. Does that mean they're cognitively deficient? Or are they just experiencing life in a radically different way? One that will cause them to develop different sensibilities and ways of interacting with the world?