Parents fear their children’s speech and language has been permanently damaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

It comes as new research found young children’s development had been severely impacted by a lack of social contact.

Catherine Halliday, from Sheerness, said the past year of lockdowns had put a stop to her son Maxwell’s additional learning support and that his communication skills had deteriorated.

Maxwell, six, has autism and other special educational needs.

The mum-of-three said: “I’m not a speech therapist, I can’t do everything, as much as I’d like to, to support my children in that area. It is really hard.”

Fortunately Maxwell joined new Sittingbourne special needs school, Aspire, in September, and since then, Catherine says he has been doing much better.

She added: “Maxwell, even now, is struggling and that is with the support, so without it children are really struggling.

“Still now, most ear, nose and throat appointments are held by telephone and many children in mainstream schools are still waiting for access to speech and language therapy blocks because of Covid.”

Research by the Education Endowment Foundation found 76% of schools surveyed felt pupils needed more help with communication than in previous years. That rose to 96% of schools that were concerned about their pupils’ language and speech development.

Hayley Forest, of Forest Autism Support in Sittingbourne, explained: “Children acquire language from being exposed to a language-rich environment. So for a long time there, that environment was somewhat limited.”

The government has invested £18m into early years learning catch up to try and fix the issue.

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