All right go get your sillies out. Go run them out.
[Reporter] By now John Gelntis' kindergarten class of King Edward Public School are old pros.
Like the mittens and toques and two hot snowsuits that are the must-haves for this season in the school yard.
[Kid] You need some help.
[Kid] No, I don't.
[Reporter] Wearing a mask is just what you do when you're a kid now.
And these kids have thoughts.
Does anybody have a reason why you like it?
Because it keeps me safe.
[Reporter] It keeps you safe. That's an excellent answer.
OK, what don't you like about your mask?
It gets wet when I'm outside.
[Teacher] Why does it get all wet, remember because you're --
[Kid] Chewing on it.
[Teacher] You're chewing on it.
Sometimes you're chewing on it.
[Kid] Licking on it.
[Reporter] Oh you're licking it.
[Laughing]
You can't see your faces because you have your mask on.
You can't see your real faces because you have your mask on.
[Teacher] Thanks Chelsea, that was a great.
[Reporter] That was a very good answer.
Spare a moment for these little ones trying to figure out who's who.
A class with twins nonetheless.
Telling people apart means learning tricks.
Who always wears the hat with the spots or the pink coat?
Do you ever get confused with your teachers?
No, no I know that messaging because he has a total mask.
Yes, Mr. G does usually wear that mask with the turtles.
That's handy because until they're teenagers they're still honing recognition
and need all the help they can get.
A York University study that's still under review
suggests a mask reduces recognition in kids by about 20 per cent.
That's five percent worse than adults
but they find ways around it faster.
[Man] Like a visual acuity level...
[Reporter] Kang Lee was studying kids and recognition before COVID came calling
and says they have an adaptation advantage.
We look at things in totality
but they look at the details.
So because of this advantage
if we make that situation more likely for them to latch on to these details
then kids can really navigate their social world more easily.
So put your hair in a ponytail but don't take it out of a ponytail.
Exactly, yeah don't change your hair, don't change your glasses.
Is there a possibility that kids are going to have some heightened abilities
coming out of the pandemic because of this?
What we have learned in the past is when something like this happens
that you block some kind of information channel
and kids have to navigate around it
suddenly the other kind of abilities increase.
Not decrease because the child's brain is very plastic, very adaptive.
Hi Izzy, hi buddy.
[Reporter] And when babies start learning about speech
faces are critical to getting tone and meaning.
Watching how lips move fundamental to forming words.
That first year of life is when speech and language are emerging in a major major way
[Reporter] David Lewkowicz with the Yale Child Study Center
has been researching that for years. Buenos Dias.
His study involves showing videos of women talking to babies.
Then by tracking the baby's eye movements
they saw that until four months of age the focus is predominantly on the eyes.
Then at eight months attention shifts to the mouth and only intensifies as they approach a year old.
Especially in homes with more than one language spoken.
Hi.
[David] So if those babies growing up who are getting two languages at the same time
they might actually be negatively affected by the masks
more than monolingual babies.
[Reporter] The good news is babies brains develop so quickly they can adapt
if adults shift how they interact.
The brain is able to make up for any sort of missing input.
This fix is a lovely one.
Just a boost in face to face time between parents and babies.
Have them in front of you and interact with them as much as you can
so that they really get that full package.
The auditory and visual package.
And to help out our friends the schoolyard mask pros
more changes from the grown-ups.
Teaching vowel sounds without showing anyone your mouth now has to be a dance.
This class has been keeping journals about all these changes in their lives.
What the masks make difficult.
A key one here. It's hard to yell for help also hard to know who needs it.
How do you know if one of your friends needs help or is sad or is happy?
[Kid] It's kind of hard wearing a mask.
Can you tell if somebody's smiling?
[Reporter] Again here's where a good teacher can and will make the difference.
And now it's like well, we also have to talk about body language.
OK, like look at this person's body language.
They're standing there with their arms straight out and their fists clenched.
They're angry, you can't read it on their face but they're angry.
[Reporter] In a weird way, are they learning more about how people express themselves
than they would have?
We hope so, we hope so.
It's just finding other ways to navigate those kind of waters but listen to the tone of my voice.
Look at my body, look at my body language.
Look at my eyes. Are my eyes crinkling at the sides?
That means i'm smiling, I'm happy.
My eyes are bugging out of my head.
That probably means I'm scared.
Stomp your feet, give them a good stomp.
[Reporter] It is work but work he mercifully adores
and his gaggle of young masked up charges are all in.