COVID-19 has unexpectedly affected the daily life of the world’s population. Among these measures taken to avoid the virus spread is closing educational institutions, affecting 80% of students worldwide (Banco Mundial, 2020) and over 3.5 million students in Chile (MINEDUC, 2020). Within this new reality, there is great concern about the pandemic's impact on the social and emotional well-being of school-age children.
Social and emotional problems associated with students’ mental health can have a negative effect on their daily lives, generating difficulties regarding their social, academic, and emotional performance and even impacting the mental health of all family members (Totsika, Hastings, Emerson, Lancaster, & Berridge, 2011). Prior to the pandemic, studies reported that between 5% and 26% of children presented emotional or internalizing, and behavioral or externalizing problems (Brauner & Stephens, 2006). Externalizing problems are defined as those involving conflict with others (e.g., aggressive behavior, hyper-reactive and disruptive behavior). Internalizing problems are defined as those related to personal difficulty (e.g., depression, anxiety, withdrawal, and somatic complaints) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Recent studies in various countries mention that stress, symptoms of depression and anxiety, rage, and frustration are some of the emotional issues associated with the quarantine and social distancing, which could have a long-term psychological impact (Brooks et al., 2020; Francisco et al., 2020; Torales, O’Higgins, Castaldelli-Maia, & Ventriglio, 2020).
The pandemic's effect on mental health has not had a uniform effect on the entire student population. The pandemic’s impact on schoolchildren could depend on various factors, such as age, gender, the existence of special education needs, prior emotional and behavioral problems, and economic differences, among others (Schonberg & Shaw, 2007; Singh et al., 2020). According to Willner and collaborators (2020), this burden is probably more significant for those with special education needs (SEN). These children face more significant challenges in the presence of COVID-19 due to the changes in their routines and because they are less tolerant of uncertainty, which could exacerbate their symptoms (Singh et al., 2020).
Multiple studies have reported a greater prevalence of emotional and behavioral difficulties among children with disabilities (Alimovic, 2013). For example, it has been stated that the prevalence of mental health issues in children with a hearing disability is between two and four times greater than in children without disabilities (Dammeyer, 2009; van Gent, Goedhart, Hindley, & Treffers, 2007). This is also reflected in a Chilean study that states that preschool-aged children with a sensory disorder (hearing and/or visual disability) present significantly more internalizing and externalizing problems than their typical development peers (Santa-Cruz, Espinoza, & Hohlberg, n.d.). Several studies explain the need to support and respect the rights of people with SEN, as well as how the pandemic has affected caretakers and families; however, there is little evidence of how the pandemic has affected behavior and emotional problems for this risk group (Navas, Verdugo, Amor, Crespo, & Martínez, 2020).
As far as we know, there are insufficient prior studies that conduct a longitudinal examination of the specific behavioral and emotional problems that COVID-19 has wrought among the school population with SEN. A general objective is to explore the pandemic's effect on children with and without SEN as individual groups and specifically comparing the impact between them. Based on prior evidence in this subject area, we hypothesize that in the Chilean population, as in the rest of the world, greater behavioral and emotional difficulties will be observed than during periods without a pandemic and that this trend is aggravated in schoolchildren with SEN.