"With limited stimulation at home and less interaction with the world outside, pandemic-era children appear to have scored shockingly low on tests designed to assess cognitive development," reports the Guardian.

The study was conducted by researchers at Brown University and included 672 children born both before and after the pandemic began in March 2020.

"In the decade preceding the pandemic, the mean IQ score on standardised tests for children aged between three months and three years of age hovered around 100, but for children born during the pandemic that number tumbled to 78," the study found.

Researchers concluded that the primary reason for the impairment on cognitive functioning was lack of stimulation and interaction at home.