Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#331

Post by diffeomorphism » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

q1w2 wrote: post #221

peterbonney wrote: post #209

I think I say this every time I see a headline like this on HN, but I'll say it again: The past decade of social science research publication has proven that provocative-sounding results should be considered fraudulent until the underlying data has been published, and then (assuming the data passes muster) should be regarded with skepticism until independently replicated with a fresh data set.

One of the most eye-opening studies I saw was that social science papers with the most citations, had the highest likelihood of not being reproducible. Meaning that Social Sciences are actually pushing out misinformation more than not.

> Meaning that...

No, that does not follow at all.

But it seems very appropriate that you quote one statistic and then make a claim about a completely different one. Good exercise/example for the reader.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#332

Post by uniqueuid » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

jpeloquin wrote: post #289

uniqueuid wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the paper, the statistical story is a bit complicated. In figure 2, the authors argue that there is a trend. But the graph seems to show the direct measurements of dependent variables with confidence intervals, and they are all non-significant. This means that there is no reason to talk about a trend, especially if the difference between significant and non-significant is not significant :) [edit]: Would r…

> In figure 2, the authors argue that there is a trend. But the graph seems to show the direct measurements of dependent variables with confidence intervals, and they are all non-significant. From the Figure 2 caption, I'm pretty sure it's showing standard deviations (of the sample) not 95% confidence intervals (of the mean). Two samples may have overlapping ± 1 s.d. intervals despite having significant different mea…

Thanks for catching this, that's even more straight-forward (and arguably less informative, but the best solution would be to have both plots of raw data and marginal effects of course).

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#333

Post by boxed » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 8:47 AM UTC

maxwellb wrote: post #323

peterbonney wrote: post #209

I think I say this every time I see a headline like this on HN, but I'll say it again: The past decade of social science research publication has proven that provocative-sounding results should be considered fraudulent until the underlying data has been published, and then (assuming the data passes muster) should be regarded with skepticism until independently replicated with a fresh data set.

If you're interested, the paper says the underlying data is freely available on request.

They all do though. Including the outright frauds.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#334

Post by smeej » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 11:44 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #245

smeej wrote: post #46

I wish the "Methods" section got a bit more info the assessments themselves. These kids are a maximum of two years old. It's not like they're sitting down with math worksheets. From my (limited) understanding, most cognitive assessments in children that age have to do with responsiveness to stimuli. It would help to know what they're testing specifically, and if it could be something extremely specific to the test th…

" In this work, therefore, we specifically sought to explore individual and population-level trends in infant and early child neurodevelopment. Analyses of cognitive development, assessed using Mullen Scales of Early Learning [40], a population normed and clinically administered tool that assesses function across the five primary domains of fine and gross motor control, visual reception, and expressive and respective…

It's small wonder I doubt this will prove an accurate measurement of their general cognitive development over time. Once the children are exposed to unmasked people with the frequency that used to be considered normal, their skills in that area will probably catch up...assuming what was previously considered "normal" ever does return.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#335

Post by vldchk » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #210

vldchk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet on the growth of notepads and smartphone usage by children 0-2 age. There are evidences that electronics and smart screens are destructive for the cognitive development of infants, while they are super easy to adopt by lazy parents. Click on some YTube show and baby won’t bother you for the next hour or two.

> lazy parents That is both name-calling and flamebait, and therefore breaks the HN guidelines ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). Can you please make your substantive points without doing that? Note this guideline also: " Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. " Parenting is one of the most emotionally activating topics that exists, and therefo…

I am a parent myself and I know very good the cost of it, and yes - I think if you enable cartoons on YouTube for your few months old kid - that’s the laziness. You always can find a way to attract and engage your baby without electronics.

You can report me and ban, I don’t mind

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#336

Post by vldchk » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

hubb wrote: post #104

vldchk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet on the growth of notepads and smartphone usage by children 0-2 age. There are evidences that electronics and smart screens are destructive for the cognitive development of infants, while they are super easy to adopt by lazy parents. Click on some YTube show and baby won’t bother you for the next hour or two.

no chance this guy has kids. ppl said this same thing about television. if you read newspaper clippings from the early 20th century you can find letters to the editor about parents concerned their kids read too many books

But surprise for you — I have. And I know that it is more than possible to develop your young ones without engaging them to electronics until they reach at least 2 years old.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#337

Post by rboes » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

peterbonney wrote: post #209

I think I say this every time I see a headline like this on HN, but I'll say it again: The past decade of social science research publication has proven that provocative-sounding results should be considered fraudulent until the underlying data has been published, and then (assuming the data passes muster) should be regarded with skepticism until independently replicated with a fresh data set.

Thanks I always forget

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#338

Post by vbphprubyjsgo » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

why would you upvote this? are you retarded?

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#339

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #248

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bankrupt in both their pedagogy and their budgets The budget woes are a myth. The US spends more on education than most other countries in exchange for middle of the pack results comparable to less developed countries with far lower budgets. The main budgetary problem is bureaucratic. The schools get more than enough money, but the teachers aren't the ones who decide how to spend it, so a teacher who wants more sch…

First, stop trying to regulate education from the top. The US doesn't regulate education from the top. Japan and France do. US education is very locally controlled.

The US has a worst of both worlds garbage system. In theory there is local control, where "local" often means at the state level and "state" is generally a thing with a GDP larger than the median country.

Then on top of that the federal Department of Education sucks billions of dollars in tax revenue out of everywhere and sends it back with strings attached. This isn't even a majority of the budgets, but it's enough that it hurts to turn the money away, and so you get all the strings.

Whereas actual "local control" would be at the level of an individual school or classroom.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#340

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #230

twoodfin wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that poor parents don’t care about their kids’ success enough to want to choose what they perceive to be better schools is belied by the lengthy waiting lists for slots in charter or magnet schools and voucher programs. What we have now is a market-based approach, where the price of admission to a top flight public school system is a $1M mortgage.

Being poor doesn't necessarily mean you care less, but it can mean you have less time, resources and mobility to out towards finding a better school and having your child go to a better school, especially if it's not as close. What we have now is a system where we for the most part try to remove market influences so wealth doesn't advantage/disadvantage children, but with the constant thorn of wealthier parents const…

> Being poor doesn't necessarily mean you care less, but it can mean you have less time, resources and mobility to out towards finding a better school and having your child go to a better school, especially if it's not as close.

Knowing which school is the good school is hardly the problem. It's the one in the good neighborhood where the poor kids can't afford to live. The problem with the status quo is that knowing that doesn't get you into the school, only money does.

> If we could actually separate wealth from public education, maybe we'd actually see some change.

This is the idea of school choice. You give every kid in the state the same amount of money for school and don't gate admission by street address and the poor kid at least has a chance to go to the better school.

You would then end up with admissions criteria like test scores for the better schools, which would have some disparity in them, but how is that worse than the status quo of every rich kid going to the good school and every poor kid going to the bad school? At least there would be a path for getting out of the hole based on something other than having your parents make more money and buy a very expensive house.

And then you can work on improving admissions criteria so that promising students with low income parents get to go to better schools. Or better yet, start your own good school that does exactly this without needing permission from the parents of dumb rich kids who want your slot.