The Educational and Health Impact of COVID-19 on Children With Special Needs: A Systematic Review

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Governments across the world were forced to impose social distancing and lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in December 2019. Following the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, the disruptions, including restrictive measures such as school closures had severe impacts on the physical, emotional and mental health of all people, especially children with special needs. There was also scant data, particularly in low-to-middle-income countries. Existing literature stems mostly from western countries, thus the need to perform a comprehensive review on this topic. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The primary objective of the systematic review is to understand the impact of COVID-19 and restrictive measures such as school closures on the educational outcomes and physical and mental health of school-going children with special needs. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: This systematic review used the PRISMA 2020 checklist where four databases  and grey literature were searched for full text articles, peer reviewed publications in the English language that were published during January 2019–December 2021. RESEARCH RESULTS: The literature search identified 1294 publications, of which 25 key papers were selected. These studies investigate the impact on children with special needs across the globe, with a majority of papers from Europe. We found that COVID-19 and the digitalization of schooling had severe impacts on the physical and mental health of children with special needs and their parents/caregivers. CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND APPLICABLE VALUE OF RESEARCH: These studies highlight the need for an inclusive school environment to ensure that the learning outcomes for children everywhere are achieved. Further, a hybrid model that includes classroom learning with novel inventive methods would be beneficial for children with special needs.