There is literally no evidence at all that masks affect development. Never mind significant evidence. None. That study is a survey of people that work with chi

There is literally no evidence at all that masks affect development. Never mind significant evidence. None. That study is a survey of people that work with children who have visual impairments to see what they think. Not only does this have nothing to do with masks, it doesn't even claim there is a link! It just says that we should probably look into seeing if there is a link. About that study, there are many reasons why they would see this correlation, ones that have nothing to do with anything sensational. Not the least of which is that they don't correct for multiple comparisons and have very weak statistical evidence for a correlation (tables 4 and 5; you give me 20 tries, I'll eventually see something significant if I don't correct for multiple comparisons). That there can easily be simple explanations for their data (the folks being studied who have visual impairments may have them due to genetic causes which are correlated with speech). That their data is biased toward seeing an effect (many children have undiagnosed language deficits or delays, of course if you have a population where experts are paying more attention you will see more deficits when you compare those statistics to the wider population). This Scientific American article is just shameless propaganda by a scientist who wants to promote his research above the well being of people and society.