6 ms·

It’s interesting to consider how one would design experimental controls for cognitive deficits after COVID-19 illness when studying academic performance at popu

It’s interesting to consider how one would design experimental controls for cognitive deficits after COVID-19 illness when studying academic performance at population scale. There’s a pretty broad base of evidence for this btw: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=covid+cognitive+deficit&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=cov...

AnthonBerg 4y ago
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  - sincerely 4y ago
    You know, the same guidelines you point to also say " Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    In my experience, a more productive way to do this is something along these lines: "Curious about those who seem to disagree: Am I missing something? Maybe one of my premises or assumptions is bad?"
- Izkata 4y ago
  It's far, far more likely to be all the closed schools, skipped years, and subpar/skipped online classes that were pushed with unnecessary lockdowns.
  - AnthonBerg 4y ago
    How do you know? Is this a calculated likelihood given certain established premises? How do you figure that injury to the physiology that performs cognition has a trivial impact compared to not showing up to school for some time? From what basis do we derive that certainty? We haven’t done so, have we? We’d want to be sure, right? And: In what way were lockdowns unnecessary? It isn’t and it never was safe for children to be infected. There is irreversible harm to children from it at an indefensibly high rate. It is obvious in children in my vicinity. I’m fairly sure my own son has lingering digestive issues after his bout. I may never know because society will not look. Nonetheless, lockdowns certainly were a bad fit to the main mode of transmission which is infectious aerosol.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "How do you figure that injury to the physiology that performs cognition has a trivial impact compared to not showing up to school for some time?" There are plenty of pre-pandemic studies about truancy and poor curricula leading to lower test scores. It's practically a tautology that if you aren't going to school and studying for the tests that you will score poorly on those tests (the measure here). Could there be some trivial (in aggregate) physiological impact at play? Maybe, but that's not the biggest factor based on this established research. "I may never know because society will not look." It's not that society won't look, but rather that minor issues are deprioritzed. If you have a new disease, there are likely to be tens of thousands unanswered questions around it. It will take decades to get to most of the questions. Some may never be answered or explained. It's unlikely anyone cares enough about an individual with digestive issues (or recurring intermittent swelling after vaccination) to do a study looking at it. If it's sufficiently rare, they may not be able to even identify it as an issue worth looking into.
- henrikschroder 4y ago
  There are plenty of countries that did not force unnecessary school closures and other useless covid theatre onto their students, and students in those countries do not exhibit the same amount of unprecedented learning loss as students in the US have, despite similar levels of infections across countries. Pandemic policies are a huge elephant in the room, and it's extremely annoying to see people like you trying to pin the blame on the pandemic itself. School closures were a disastrous policy, full stop. This is the price of that choice of policy.
  - AnthonBerg 4y ago
    I am talking about an effect. (You are talking about… people like me? Being extremely annoying? Because I’m not talking about a different aspect than the one I am talking about?) How can we measure this effect? How do you know that it’s not the measured cognitive deficit after the infection and only school closures? How was it measured? We’d want to analyse and investigate the effect, right?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      Do you have any relevant data? We can what-if all day. If you have data pointing to this, I would like to see it. Your first was a legitimate comment for discussion. The recent one doesn't seem interested in a reasonable discussion. The prior commenter makes a solid point and you get hand-wavey because there's not a study supporting it... when your initial comment was just as theoretical (does your study show this is applicable to kids, at what rate, in which countries, what are their test score results, etc).
      - AnthonBerg 4y ago
        I’d invite you to take a look at the multitude of scientific results on cognitive impairment after infection and the numerous physiological mechanisms which are known to be at play. A number of them pop up here on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=covid+cognitive+deficit&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=cov... Note that this is the only data which has been provided in this discussion as far as I can see right now. What made the commenter’s solid point a solid point? Was there data?
- hoistbypetard 4y ago
  FWIW, I tend to downvote comments that discuss voting very mechanically. It's not any position relative to the content... I find discussion of how we vote on comments very uninteresting, and I vote accordingly. I don't think I'm alone, and I suspect that I'll see a downvote or two for this one, but I felt it might be kind to point this out just the same.
1letterunixname 4y ago
Although it may be unpopular, tests shouldn't be weighted based on extrinsic factors like race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economics, or health condition. If particular students or certain demographics aren't achieving, direct help to them rather than lower the bar. Build achievement and excellence, not participation trophies. If stats decline for a few years due to widespread neurological damage and/or a lack of pedagogical impact, then it is what it is. The field of education should set goals to get back there rather than fudge the numbers.
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  We certainly shouldn’t normalise the grades to look statistically identical over time if there’s something wrong underneath! But we certainly want to do analyses on why grades are dropping.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "But we certainly want to do analyses on why grades are dropping." Yes, and there's tons of that research out there if you care to look for it.
    - AnthonBerg 4y ago
      Is there research which studies the effect of COVID-19 cognitive impairment? I’m interested in the study designs. It would be nice to disprove it, right?
      - giantg2 4y ago
        Disprove what? You're conflating multiple issues and misapplying the data. If we're trying to study a problem, we should identify possible root issues. The problem of lower test scores have much better options to investigate. This is why the studies are focusing elsewhere. It's like saying the boat is sinking and we should study the rain instead of the hole in hull or the broken bilge pump.
svnt 4y ago
Linking a google scholar query with results does not imply a broad base of valid evidence. It just means people went looking and published. The top three, which are the only ones I bothered to skim, have quality problems. The third one seems to be the most cited so I spent the most time with it. It in effect reduces to “if you were hospitalized with COVID” you now have significant cognitive impairments, but from my brief reading there is no “before” so it could just as easily be titled “cognitively impaired people make bad life choices that lead to pre-existing conditions that lead to (exposure to and) hospitalization with COVID.” Additionally the sample of N at 84k is misleading as only roughly 200 people are in their “significantly impaired” set. It was a quick read, as I said, and I may have oversimplified, so if I’m wrong, please feel free to respond with corrections.
- giantg2 4y ago
  And at 200 in 84k, the percent of affected individuals are unlikely to affect aggregate data in any practical way (if those numbers even apply to peds, which I'm skeptical of). Nor would there be any actionable solution.
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  Thank you for engaging! Sincerely. If – if! – we take it as a valid premise that cognitive impairment exists after COVID-19. In adults. And if we take it as a valid premise that this is exhibited in younger people too. Then: I find it interesting to think about how one would study progress or decline in an education system, i.e. to look at that system itself to maintain and increase quality of the system. And: if and how one can reveal or disprove a population-scale effect on cognition due to this particular illness. Regarding cognitive deficits or impairment, I’m not focusing solely on brain damage as the cause, although it is known to occur. There’s also vascular and endothelal dysfunction, endocrine issues like abnormally low cortisol and blood glucose dysregulation, and immune dysregulation – T-cells in the brain (not good, not usual), and elevated inflammatory cytokines which are known to affect behavior. (This is all unsourced; There exist sources for it.) A lot of this is reversible. It’s not known that all of it is. I think we ought to look at these issues. In this context. I’m interested in thinking about and discussing the scientific mechanisms with which to look.
credit_guy 4y ago
Most kids did not suffer significantly if they got Covid. The vast majority of the kids who got Covid had just mild symptoms. I'm not saying there were no kids who had it bad, but they formed a very small minority, and could not have dragged down the average ACT score.
spoonjim 4y ago
Also the learning loss from 2+ Years of Zoom School

AnthonBerg 4y ago

AnthonBerg 4y ago
- sincerely 4y ago
  You know, the same guidelines you point to also say " Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
- torstenvl 4y ago
  In my experience, a more productive way to do this is something along these lines: "Curious about those who seem to disagree: Am I missing something? Maybe one of my premises or assumptions is bad?"
Izkata 4y ago
It's far, far more likely to be all the closed schools, skipped years, and subpar/skipped online classes that were pushed with unnecessary lockdowns.
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  How do you know? Is this a calculated likelihood given certain established premises? How do you figure that injury to the physiology that performs cognition has a trivial impact compared to not showing up to school for some time? From what basis do we derive that certainty? We haven’t done so, have we? We’d want to be sure, right? And: In what way were lockdowns unnecessary? It isn’t and it never was safe for children to be infected. There is irreversible harm to children from it at an indefensibly high rate. It is obvious in children in my vicinity. I’m fairly sure my own son has lingering digestive issues after his bout. I may never know because society will not look. Nonetheless, lockdowns certainly were a bad fit to the main mode of transmission which is infectious aerosol.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "How do you figure that injury to the physiology that performs cognition has a trivial impact compared to not showing up to school for some time?" There are plenty of pre-pandemic studies about truancy and poor curricula leading to lower test scores. It's practically a tautology that if you aren't going to school and studying for the tests that you will score poorly on those tests (the measure here). Could there be some trivial (in aggregate) physiological impact at play? Maybe, but that's not the biggest factor based on this established research. "I may never know because society will not look." It's not that society won't look, but rather that minor issues are deprioritzed. If you have a new disease, there are likely to be tens of thousands unanswered questions around it. It will take decades to get to most of the questions. Some may never be answered or explained. It's unlikely anyone cares enough about an individual with digestive issues (or recurring intermittent swelling after vaccination) to do a study looking at it. If it's sufficiently rare, they may not be able to even identify it as an issue worth looking into.
henrikschroder 4y ago
There are plenty of countries that did not force unnecessary school closures and other useless covid theatre onto their students, and students in those countries do not exhibit the same amount of unprecedented learning loss as students in the US have, despite similar levels of infections across countries. Pandemic policies are a huge elephant in the room, and it's extremely annoying to see people like you trying to pin the blame on the pandemic itself. School closures were a disastrous policy, full stop. This is the price of that choice of policy.
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  I am talking about an effect. (You are talking about… people like me? Being extremely annoying? Because I’m not talking about a different aspect than the one I am talking about?) How can we measure this effect? How do you know that it’s not the measured cognitive deficit after the infection and only school closures? How was it measured? We’d want to analyse and investigate the effect, right?
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Do you have any relevant data? We can what-if all day. If you have data pointing to this, I would like to see it. Your first was a legitimate comment for discussion. The recent one doesn't seem interested in a reasonable discussion. The prior commenter makes a solid point and you get hand-wavey because there's not a study supporting it... when your initial comment was just as theoretical (does your study show this is applicable to kids, at what rate, in which countries, what are their test score results, etc).
    - AnthonBerg 4y ago
      I’d invite you to take a look at the multitude of scientific results on cognitive impairment after infection and the numerous physiological mechanisms which are known to be at play. A number of them pop up here on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=covid+cognitive+deficit&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=cov... Note that this is the only data which has been provided in this discussion as far as I can see right now. What made the commenter’s solid point a solid point? Was there data?
hoistbypetard 4y ago
FWIW, I tend to downvote comments that discuss voting very mechanically. It's not any position relative to the content... I find discussion of how we vote on comments very uninteresting, and I vote accordingly. I don't think I'm alone, and I suspect that I'll see a downvote or two for this one, but I felt it might be kind to point this out just the same.

1letterunixname 4y ago

Although it may be unpopular, tests shouldn't be weighted based on extrinsic factors like race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economics, or health condition. If particular students or certain demographics aren't achieving, direct help to them rather than lower the bar. Build achievement and excellence, not participation trophies. If stats decline for a few years due to widespread neurological damage and/or a lack of pedagogical impact, then it is what it is. The field of education should set goals to get back there rather than fudge the numbers.

AnthonBerg 4y ago
We certainly shouldn’t normalise the grades to look statistically identical over time if there’s something wrong underneath! But we certainly want to do analyses on why grades are dropping.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "But we certainly want to do analyses on why grades are dropping." Yes, and there's tons of that research out there if you care to look for it.
  - AnthonBerg 4y ago
    Is there research which studies the effect of COVID-19 cognitive impairment? I’m interested in the study designs. It would be nice to disprove it, right?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      Disprove what? You're conflating multiple issues and misapplying the data. If we're trying to study a problem, we should identify possible root issues. The problem of lower test scores have much better options to investigate. This is why the studies are focusing elsewhere. It's like saying the boat is sinking and we should study the rain instead of the hole in hull or the broken bilge pump.

svnt 4y ago

Linking a google scholar query with results does not imply a broad base of valid evidence. It just means people went looking and published. The top three, which are the only ones I bothered to skim, have quality problems. The third one seems to be the most cited so I spent the most time with it. It in effect reduces to “if you were hospitalized with COVID” you now have significant cognitive impairments, but from my brief reading there is no “before” so it could just as easily be titled “cognitively impaired people make bad life choices that lead to pre-existing conditions that lead to (exposure to and) hospitalization with COVID.” Additionally the sample of N at 84k is misleading as only roughly 200 people are in their “significantly impaired” set. It was a quick read, as I said, and I may have oversimplified, so if I’m wrong, please feel free to respond with corrections.

giantg2 4y ago
And at 200 in 84k, the percent of affected individuals are unlikely to affect aggregate data in any practical way (if those numbers even apply to peds, which I'm skeptical of). Nor would there be any actionable solution.
AnthonBerg 4y ago
Thank you for engaging! Sincerely. If – if! – we take it as a valid premise that cognitive impairment exists after COVID-19. In adults. And if we take it as a valid premise that this is exhibited in younger people too. Then: I find it interesting to think about how one would study progress or decline in an education system, i.e. to look at that system itself to maintain and increase quality of the system. And: if and how one can reveal or disprove a population-scale effect on cognition due to this particular illness. Regarding cognitive deficits or impairment, I’m not focusing solely on brain damage as the cause, although it is known to occur. There’s also vascular and endothelal dysfunction, endocrine issues like abnormally low cortisol and blood glucose dysregulation, and immune dysregulation – T-cells in the brain (not good, not usual), and elevated inflammatory cytokines which are known to affect behavior. (This is all unsourced; There exist sources for it.) A lot of this is reversible. It’s not known that all of it is. I think we ought to look at these issues. In this context. I’m interested in thinking about and discussing the scientific mechanisms with which to look.

credit_guy 4y ago

Most kids did not suffer significantly if they got Covid. The vast majority of the kids who got Covid had just mild symptoms. I'm not saying there were no kids who had it bad, but they formed a very small minority, and could not have dragged down the average ACT score.

spoonjim 4y ago

Also the learning loss from 2+ Years of Zoom School