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Toddler’s Self-Regulation Strategies in a Challenge Context are Nap-Dependent
Abstract
Early childhood represents a time of developmental changes in both sleep and self-regulation, a construct reflecting the ability to control one's behaviour, attention and emotions when challenged. Links between sleep and self-regulation processes have been proposed, but experimental evidence with young children is lacking. In the current study, we tested the effects of acute sleep restriction (nap deprivation) on toddlers' self-regulation. Healthy children (n = 12; four males; aged 30-36 months (33.9 ± 1.7)) slept on a strict schedule (verified with actigraphy and sleep diaries) for 5 days before each of two afternoon assessments following a nap and a no-nap condition (~11-day protocol). Children were videotaped while attempting an unsolvable puzzle, and 10 mutually exclusive self-regulation strategies were later coded. On average, children lost ~90 min of sleep on the no-nap versus the nap day. Nap deprivation resulted in moderate-to-large effects on self-regulation strategies, with decreases in scepticism (d = 0.77; 7% change), negative self-appraisal (d = 0.92; 5% change) and increases in physical self-soothing (d = 0.68; 10% change), focus on the puzzle piece that would not fit (perseveration; d = 0.50; 9% change) and insistence on completing the unsolvable puzzle (d = 0.91; 10% change). Results suggest that sleep serves an important role in the way that toddlers respond to challenging events in their daily lives. After losing daytime sleep, toddlers were less able to engage effectively in a difficult task and reverted to less mature self-regulation strategies than when they were well rested. Over time, chronically missed sleep may impair young children's self-regulation abilities, resulting in risk for social-emotional, behavioural and school problems.
... Self-regulation. To assess coping processes, children were confronted with an age-appropriate, but unsolvable puzzle either one hour after their habitual nap or one hour after the habitual nap would normally have occurred (nap vs. nap deprivation) 61,62 . One minute after all pieces, except the incorrect one, were successfully placed, children were encouraged to finish. ...
... Physical self-soothing, as repetitive bodilydirected behaviors, and focussing on the piece that would not fit, thus perseverance and tenancy to complete increased after nap deprivation. Additionally, negative self-appraisal, as discrediting the competence to solve the puzzle in the unsolvable puzzle task, and display of confusion to the challenging situation, decreased after nap-deprivation 61,62 . ...
... Except one 51 , all of them implemented a sleep stabilization period of five or seven nights before sleep manipulation. Four studies restricted the afternoon nap to assess the effect of sleep loss on emotional reactions 51,61,62,66 . One study implemented a form of nightsleep restriction in young children 53 In school-aged children, two studies implemented experimental sleep restriction. ...
Sleep and emotions are closely associated; however, the methodological challenges in the examination of sleep and the processes of emotion regulation in children and adolescents have not been investigated so far. Additionally, there is the demand to identify the levels of emotion regulating processes in which problematic or restricted sleep causes effect. Experimental sleep deprivation as well as prevalent sleep problems have been found to have negative influence on mental health and regulating functions. This review focuses first on the methodological protocols of the included studies. Subsequently, the results are summarized in the context of a multilevel model of emotion regulation. Thereafter, suggestions for future directions are given. Sleep problems and sleep deprivation are associated with a decrease of functional emotion regulating behavior and impaired emotion generation, and prolonged sleep enhances better mood and affect states, positive emotion expression, and faster sensory processing in response to emotional stimuli. This literature review highlights the limitations in current research, focusing on types of measurements, task characteristics, and data analysis. At the conclusion, suggestions are given for the future research direction in the field of sleep and emotion regulation in children and adolescents.
... In light of the current scientific knowledge, children who are deprived of naps at preschool age can experience a wide range of metabolic, physical, psychological, and emotional disorders, with potentially irreversible shortand long-term consequences (Table 1). [29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Families who are concerned about the quality or the amount of sleep of their children, be it sleeping too little or in excess of the above-mentioned recommended hours, should consult their pediatrician or family doctor for an assessment of any possible sleep pathologies. Loss and fragmentation of sleep are known to directly affect mood and its regulation, with irritability and emotional dysregulation. ...
... Loss and fragmentation of sleep are known to directly affect mood and its regulation, with irritability and emotional dysregulation. 29 Manifestations of sleep deprivation range from the usual signs of drowsiness, such as eye rubbing or laying head on the desk, to externalized behaviors, such as increased impulsivity, motor agitation and aggression, distraction, and inability to complete tasks. [29][30][31] In children, unlike adults, sleep deprivation is more often related to symptoms of impulsivity and low attention levels that can be confused with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ...
... 29 Manifestations of sleep deprivation range from the usual signs of drowsiness, such as eye rubbing or laying head on the desk, to externalized behaviors, such as increased impulsivity, motor agitation and aggression, distraction, and inability to complete tasks. [29][30][31] In children, unlike adults, sleep deprivation is more often related to symptoms of impulsivity and low attention levels that can be confused with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Sleep deprivation also affects neurocognitive functions with a reduction in mental flexibility, abstract thinking, motor dexterity and memory, with the subsequent learning impairment. ...
... 14,32 Our findings extend these observational findings and are consistent with experimental studies in children showing that short-term manipulation of sleep (where compliance to fixed sleep schedules is required) alters self-regulation. [33][34][35][36][37] For example, preschoolers randomized to a no-nap condition exhibited less effective self-regulation strategies when completing an unsolvable puzzle compared with those in a nap condition 35 and school-age children randomized to 5 nights of nocturnal sleep extension exhibited improved emotional lability and restless-impulsive behavior scores (assessed via teacher-reported questionnaire) compared with those randomized to the sleep restriction condition. 34 Our study builds on these by demonstrating, in a randomized controlled trial, a positive effect of a brief, at-home, behavioral sleep intervention after 2 months. ...
... 14,32 Our findings extend these observational findings and are consistent with experimental studies in children showing that short-term manipulation of sleep (where compliance to fixed sleep schedules is required) alters self-regulation. [33][34][35][36][37] For example, preschoolers randomized to a no-nap condition exhibited less effective self-regulation strategies when completing an unsolvable puzzle compared with those in a nap condition 35 and school-age children randomized to 5 nights of nocturnal sleep extension exhibited improved emotional lability and restless-impulsive behavior scores (assessed via teacher-reported questionnaire) compared with those randomized to the sleep restriction condition. 34 Our study builds on these by demonstrating, in a randomized controlled trial, a positive effect of a brief, at-home, behavioral sleep intervention after 2 months. ...
Objective
Short sleep and evening phase preference associate with impaired self-control, yet few studies have assessed the efficacy of sleep extension for improving this behavioral domain. Thus, this secondary analysis of a behavioral sleep intervention measured whether an intervention that enhanced children's sleep also affected self-control. Differences by chronotype were also explored.
Methods
Sixty-seven children (8–11 yr), who reportedly slept <9.5 hr/d, were randomized to either a control or sleep intervention condition (i.e., 4-session behavioral intervention to enhance sleep by 1–1.5 hr/night). Chronotype was assessed using the Child Chronotype Questionnaire at baseline, and self-control was assessed using the Self-Control Rating Scale (SCRS, a caregiver report) at baseline and 8 weeks postrandomization. Total sleep time (TST) was measured using wrist actigraphy for 1 week at both baseline and 8 weeks postrandomization. Partial correlations and mixed-model ANOVAs were used for statistical analyses, with age as a covariate.
Results
At baseline, children with shorter TST (r = −0.29, p = 0.02) and an evening preference (r = 0.26, p = 0.049) were perceived as having lower self-control by their caregivers. Significant condition*time interaction effects were found for TST ( p < 0.001) and SCRS score ( p = 0.046): From baseline to follow-up, children randomized to the sleep intervention exhibited a significant increase in TST and were perceived as having greater self-control by their caregiver; children randomized to the control condition exhibited no change in TST or in SCRS score. The condition*chronotype*time interaction effect was not significant.
Conclusion
A brief sleep intervention that enhanced TST also resulted in enhanced caregiver reported self-control in school-age children. Results add to the growing evidence for the importance of sleep health in children.
... Beyond commonly investigated sleep parameters (e.g., sleep duration or night awakenings), the current study found that accumulating caregiver-reported insomnia symptoms are linked with impaired early childhood outcomes, adding to the extant literature on sleep and psychological functioning in early childhood (Reynaud et al., 2018). Putative mechanisms linking insomnia symptoms to these outcomes include impairments in emotion regulation and behavioral control due to poor sleep (Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2015;Turnbull et al., 2013). It also may be that children with sleep problems reflect a subgroup of children with undiagnosed internalizing and externalizing conditions. ...
... More research examining interrelations among these factors as well as cumulative risk exposure is needed, especially in preschool-aged and younger children. Additional studies are especially needed given experimental research indicating that nap deprivation can impair toddlers' self-regulation strategies (Miller et al., 2015). Although insufficient sleep was based on total, 24-hr sleep, future research should further explore the impact of nighttime versus daytime sleep duration on psychosocial outcomes, especially given that there is considerable variability in napping developmentally, between ages 2 and 5 years, as well as according to child racial/ethnic background (Staton et al., 2020). ...
Background
Sleep problems and cumulative risk factors (e.g., caregiver depression, socioeconomic disadvantage) have independently been linked to adverse child development, but few studies have examined the interplay of these factors. We examined whether cumulative risk exposure moderated the link between sleep problems, including insomnia and poor sleep health, and child psychological outcomes.
Methods
205 caregiver-child dyads (child Mage = 3.3 years; 53.7% girls; 62.9% Black, 22.4% non-Latinx White, and 4.4% Latinx; 85.4% maternal caregiver reporter) completed child sleep, family sociodemographic, and child psychological functioning (internalizing, externalizing, and executive functioning) questionnaires. Indexes of cumulative risk exposure, insomnia symptoms, and poor sleep health were created.
Results
Ninety percent of children had ≥1 cumulative risks, 62.9% had ≥1 insomnia symptom, and 84.5% had ≥1 poor sleep health behavior. Increased insomnia symptoms were significantly associated with increased child internalizing, externalizing, and global executive functioning impairments controlling for child age, race/ethnicity, and sex. Poor sleep health behaviors were associated with internalizing concerns. Cumulative risk exposure was not associated with outcomes but moderated the association between insomnia symptoms and all psychological outcomes, such that children with higher cumulative risk exposure and insomnia symptoms had the greatest impairments. Children with the poorest sleep health behaviors and highest cumulative risks had the greatest internalizing concerns.
Conclusions
Insomnia symptoms in particular are associated with poor child outcomes, which are exacerbated when accompanied by greater cumulative risk exposure. Clinicians should assess sleep when treating early psychological concerns, especially within the context of increased cumulative risks.
... Few studies have focused on emotional consequences of napping in infants and toddlers. For example, some studies found that when toddlers are deprived of a mid-day nap, they show significantly more negative behavior and less mature self-regulation skills when faced with an unsolvable puzzle task [15] and subjectively rate emotionally salient stimuli more strongly [16]. Furthermore, it was found that an acute loss of daytime sleep in regularly napping preschoolers leads to moderate-to-large decrement in self-regulation, emotion processing, and learning [15][16][17]. ...
... For example, some studies found that when toddlers are deprived of a mid-day nap, they show significantly more negative behavior and less mature self-regulation skills when faced with an unsolvable puzzle task [15] and subjectively rate emotionally salient stimuli more strongly [16]. Furthermore, it was found that an acute loss of daytime sleep in regularly napping preschoolers leads to moderate-to-large decrement in self-regulation, emotion processing, and learning [15][16][17]. Particularly, Berger and colleagues [15] conducted an experimental study of daytime sleep restriction among 10 children aged 30-36 months (seven females and three males) trained to a nap schedule (at least 5 days before emotion assessments to minimize the influence of sleep restriction ≥12.5 h time in bed per 24-h day). They compared, through videorecording, facial emotional responses in nap and no-nap conditions when viewing emotion-eliciting validated pictures (positive, negative and neutral) and completing puzzle. ...
Background: Childcare programs often include mandatory naptime during the day. Loss of daytime sleep could lead to a moderate-to-large decrease in self-regulation, emotion processing, and learning in early childhood. Nevertheless, daytime sleep has been less accurately studied than nighttime sleep. This study aims to explore the relationship between diurnal sleep habits in nursery settings, nocturnal sleep quality, and post-nap emotional intensity in infants and toddlers. Methods: Data of 92 children (52 girls, 40 boys) aged 6 to 36 months were obtained. Sleep habits as well as positive and negative emotions were monitored by educators during nursery times through a sleep and emotion diary for two weeks. Results: Explorative analyses showed that diurnal sleep hours decreased across age groups (except for females aged 25–36 months) and that all age groups had a lower amount of nocturnal sleep than is recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. Partial correlation analysis showed significant correlation between daytime sleep onset latency and positive emotions. Mediation analyses showed that daytime napping is relevant for emotional functioning independently of nocturnal sleep quality. Conclusions: Daytime sleep in early childhood seems to be linked to the management of positive and negative emotions and could play a role in healthy development of emotional processes.
... There is also evidence referring to the relationship between sleep and emotion regulation in children. For example, it has been found that toddlers (aged 30-36 months) with nap restriction were less able to solve a difficult task involving self-regulation strategies compared to toddlers without nap restriction [11]. Moreover, Hysing and colleagues in 2016 [12] found that two year old toddlers who slept less than 11 hours per night and had prolonged sleep onset latency (>30 min) and/or three or more awakenings per night were more likely to develop socio-emotional problems. ...
... Answers were provided on a five-point Likert scale, and summing up the results of the respective seven items, ranging from 0 to 28, a total score of insomnia severity during the preceding two weeks could be obtained. The total score is interpreted as follows: clinically irrelevant insomnia (0-7); subthreshold insomnia (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14); moderate insomnia (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21); and severe insomnia (22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). ...
Background: During the first years of life, parental sleep strongly depends on child’s sleep quality. Poor parental sleep may relate to increased stress and negative mood. However, there is a lack of sleep studies focusing on all family members. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between sleep, mood, and stress in mothers, fathers and children. Methods: Data were obtained from 65 parental couples and 65 children (2 to 36 months). Data on sleep for all family members and stress of parents were completed by both mothers and fathers through questionnaires and sleep diaries. Results: Toddlers’ positive mood before nocturnal sleep was significantly associated with reduced wake times after sleep onset. Mothers reported worse sleep quality compared to fathers. Shorter sleep onset latency in fathers and better sleep efficiency in mothers were linked with better self-reported mood upon awakening. In mothers, but not in fathers, poor sleep quality was associated with higher perceived stress. Conclusion: Results suggest bidirectional relationships between sleep and mood in children, mothers and fathers. Moreover, results evidence poorer sleep in mothers, compared to fathers, which was linked with increased parenting stress. This gender gap should be further considered in studies with larger samples and in clinical contexts.
... Interestingly, our study shows that children who napped the greatest frequency per week and the longest duration per nap demonstrated significant increases across all three measures, with effect sizes of approximately d= 0.3. In one study of nap-restricted toddlers, behavioral self-regulation, attention, and positive emotions were reduced 33,34 . Although the impact of napping on grit has not been investigated, one recent study examining the effect of napping on motivation in young adults reported an inverse relationship 72 . ...
... Previous studies on napping and emotional/behavioral problems have been limited to young children, with conflicting findings. Some small-sample experimental studies found that acute daytime sleep restriction in habitually napping preschoolers is associated with impaired self-regulation and emotion processing 33,34,74 , which are risk factors for child behavior problems 75 . Interestingly, two epidemiological studies found no significant relationship between napping and behavior problems in preschoolers 39 , which could be due to a lack of consistency in nap assessment and not controlling for covariates 38 . ...
Study Objectives
Poor sleep and daytime sleepiness in children and adolescents have short and long-term consequences on various aspects of health. Midday napping may be a useful strategy to reduce such negative impacts. The effect of habitual napping on a wide spectrum of cognitive, behavioral, psychological, and metabolic outcomes has not been systematically investigated.
Methods
This study characterized midday napping habits in 3819 elementary school children from the China Jintan Cohort Study. In 2011, weekly nap frequency and average duration were collected once from students at grades 4-6. Prior to their completion of elementary school at grade 6 (in 2011-2013 respective to each grade), the following outcomes were collected once: behavioral and academic achievement evaluated by teachers, and self-reported positive psychology measures including grit, self-control, and happiness. IQ tests were conducted on a subgroup. Metabolic indices including body mass index and fasting glucose concentration were measured through physical exams. For the whole sample, we assessed associations between napping and each outcome, adjusted for sex, grade, school location, parental education, and time in bed at night. We also conducted stratified analyses on grade 6 (cross-sectional), grade 4 (2-year gap), and grade 5 (1-year gap) data.
Results
Overall, napping was significantly associated with higher happiness, grit, and self-control, reduced internalizing behavior problem, higher verbal IQs, and better academic achievement, although specific patterns varied across frequency and duration for different outcomes. More limited significant associations were found for decreased externalizing behavior problems, compared to non-nappers, while no significant associations were found for performance IQ and metabolic outcomes.
Conclusions
Results indicate benefits of regular napping across a wide range of adolescent outcomes, including better cognition, better psychological wellness, and reduced emotional/behavioral problems. The current study underscores the need for further large-scale intervention studies to establish causal effects.
... There is also evidence referring to the relationship between sleep and emotion regulation in children. For example, it has been found that toddlers (aged 30-36 months) with nap restriction were less able to solve a difficult task involving self-regulation strategies compared to toddlers without nap restriction [11]. Moreover, Hysing and colleagues in 2016 [12] found that two year old toddlers who slept less than 11 hours per night and had prolonged sleep onset latency (> 30 min) and/or three or more awakenings per night were more likely to develop socio-emotional problems. ...
... Answers were provided on a five-point Likert scale, and summing up the results of the respective seven items, ranging from 0 to 28, a total score of insomnia severity during the preceding two weeks could be obtained. The total score is interpreted as follows: clinically irrelevant insomnia (0-7); subthreshold insomnia (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14); moderate insomnia (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21); and severe insomnia (22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). ...
Background:
During the first years of life, parental sleep strongly depends on child's sleep quality. Poor parental sleep may relate to increased stress and negative mood. However, there is a lack of sleep studies focusing on all family members. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between sleep, mood, and stress in mothers, fathers and children.
Methods:
Data were obtained from 65 parental couples and 65 children (2 to 36 months). Data on sleep for all family members and stress of parents were completed by both mothers and fathers through questionnaires and sleep diaries.
Results:
Toddlers' positive mood before nocturnal sleep was significantly associated with reduced wake times after sleep onset. Mothers reported worse sleep quality compared to fathers. Shorter sleep onset latency in fathers and better sleep efficiency in mothers were linked with better self-reported mood upon awakening. In mothers, but not in fathers, poor sleep quality was associated with higher perceived stress.
Conclusion:
Results suggest bidirectional relationships between sleep and mood in children, mothers and fathers. Moreover, results evidence poorer sleep in mothers, compared to fathers, which was linked with increased parenting stress. This gender gap should be further considered in studies with larger samples and in clinical contexts.
... Sleep is hypothesized to contribute to the development of neurocognitive and executive functioning skills that are foundational for effective self-regulation (Touchette, Mongrain, Petit, Tremblay, & Montplaisir, 2008; reviewed in Turnbull, Reid, & Morton, 2013). Sleep loss is associated with poorer self-regulation and cognitive processing among school-aged children (Gruber, Cassoff, Frenette, Wiebe, & Carrier, 2012;Molfese et al., 2013), and data from experimental work have shown similar effects on emotion processing in relatively small samples of toddler-aged children (Berger, Miller, Seifer, Cares, & LeBourgeois, 2012;Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & LeBourgeois, 2015). Self-regulation is often considered foundational to early childhood mental health (reviewed in Masten & Coatsworth, 1998), and disturbed sleep is common in children who have psychiatric disorders (reviewed in Gregory & Sadeh, 2016); some research findings have suggested that sleep problems and/or sleep loss in childhood predict the later onset of mood and attentional disorders (reviewed in Gregory & Sadeh, 2016). ...
... Therefore, toddlerhood is an important age at which to study the interplay of the sleep and self-regulatory systems. Although the empirical evidence supporting sleep as central to self-regulation during the toddler and preschool years is growing (Berger et al., 2012;Bernier, Carlson, Bordeleau, & Carrier, 2010;Miller et al., 2015;Schumacher et al., 2017), few if any studies have focused on both sleep and self-regulation in children from low-income familes at these developmental periods, despite their documented risk for poor functioning in both areas (El-Sheikh et al., 2013;Evans & Kim, 2013;Singh & Kenney, 2013). ...
Toddlerhood is a sensitive period in the development of self-regulation, a set of adaptive skills that are fundamental to mental health and partly shaped by parenting. Healthy sleep is known to be critical for self-regulation; yet, the degree to which child sleep alters interactive child-parent processes remains understudied. This study examines associations between observed parenting and toddler self-regulation, with toddler sleep as a moderator of this association. Toddlers in low-income families (N = 171) and their mothers were videotaped during free play and a self-regulation challenge task; videos were coded for mothers' behavior and affect (free play) and toddlers' self-regulation (challenge task). Mothers reported their child's nighttime sleep duration via questionnaire. Results revealed significant Sleep × Maternal Negative Affect and Sleep × Maternal Negative Control interactions. Children who did not experience negative parenting had good self-regulation regardless of their nighttime sleep duration. For children who did experience negative parenting, self-regulation was intact among those who obtained more nighttime sleep, but significantly poorer among children who were getting less nighttime sleep. Thus, among children who were reported to obtain less nighttime sleep, there were more robust associations between negative parenting and poorer self-regulation than among toddlers who were reported to obtain more sleep.
© 2019 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.
... [24][25][26][27][28][29] Research shows that 30-60 min of restricted nighttime sleep negatively impacts children's daytime behaviour and executive functioning. [30][31][32][33] As with SDB, insufficient sleep is thought to impact the frontal lobes, leading to these neurobehavioural deficits. 34 Early childhood sleep health disparities and development Rapid neurobehavioural and social-emotional development, with gains in executive functioning and social skills instrumental for school success, occurs in children between the ages of 3 and 5 years. ...
Introduction
Sleep deficiencies, such as sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and insufficient sleep, are linked to adverse health outcomes. These sleep deficiencies are more common in racial and ethnic minoritised children and have significant negative impacts on neurobehavioural and social-emotional development. Non-Latine Black/African American children are 4–6 times more likely than non-Latine White children to experience both SDB and short sleep duration. Although SDB and insufficient sleep often co-occur in young children, there is a paucity of research considering the potential unique and additive impacts of SDB and insufficient sleep on child outcomes, as well as racial disparities in these outcomes, thus hindering comprehensive interventions. Our study objectives are to (1) examine racial disparities in the neurobehavioural and social-emotional impacts of early childhood SDB and/or insufficient sleep and (2) identify proximal and distal socioecological factors linked to these sleep disparities and outcomes.
Methods and analysis
A cross-sectional observational study comparing neurobehavioural (executive functioning, attention, vigilance) and social-emotional functioning (social skills, emotion regulation) in 400 dyads consisting of caregivers and their otherwise healthy Black and White 3–5 year-old children and divided into four groups: (A) preschoolers with SDB; (B) preschoolers with insufficient sleep; (C) preschoolers with both SDB and insufficient sleep and (D) matched controls. Child SDB, insufficient sleep, neurobehavioural skills and social-emotional functioning are measured using validated objective and subjective assessment tools, with a subset of caregivers completing qualitative interviews. Primary outcomes include individual differences in neurobehavioural and social-emotional functioning in these groups of Black and White preschoolers, and multilevel socioecological factors associated with variation in outcomes. Quantitative data will be analysed using descriptive analyses, linear regression and comparison of model coefficients. Qualitative data will be coded using thematic analysis and a joint display to stratify qualitative themes by child race and sleep deficiencies.
Ethics and dissemination
The study protocol has been approved by the institutional review board of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Oregon. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and conferences.
... From birth, sleep enhances brain development (Fifer et al., 2010;Grigg-Damberger, 2017;Miller et al., 2015;Sadeh et al., 2002). During sleep, the sensory information people have acquired while awake is reprocessed and consolidated (Fernandez and Lüthi, 2020;Fogel and Smith, 2011;Gruber and Wise, 2016). ...
... For example, in infancy, one study of 28 newly walking infants found that a nap facilitated learning to solve a novel motor problem [8], whereas another study indicated that naps promote flexible memory retrieval in 12-month-olds [9]. For toddlers and preschoolers, naps facilitate verb generalization Communicated by Peter de Winter [10], vocabulary growth [11], generalization of word meanings [12], and self-regulation, especially emotional regulation [13,14], and are associated with fewer behavior problems [15]. ...
Infant and toddler sleep affects family functioning and maternal mental health and well-being. However, little is known about parental perceptions regarding child daytime sleep. The current study aimed to determine maternal beliefs and cognitions of child naps, assessing how naps impact perceived child and maternal functioning. Mothers of 465 infants and toddlers (4–36mos; M = 18.5mos) in the United States completed an online questionnaire addressing those aims, including maternal perception of naps after napping cessation. Most mothers agreed that naps were important (98%). Over two-thirds wanted to change something about their child’s naps and one-quarter reported that naps were problematic. About half wished their child fell asleep faster/easier for naps, and one-third wished they napped longer. Few reported that child naps were more trouble than they were worth (4%). Most mothers believed that when their child naps well their child is in a better mood (97%), more easy-going (96%), has fewer tantrums (89%), and listens better (84%, toddlers). Finally, most mothers believed that their child’s naps were important for their own day (94%), improved their own mood (87%) made them feel calmer (90%), and enabled them to nap (51%), do more in the house (92%), complete work (87%), spend time with others (78%), and spend time doing things for themselves (80%).
Conclusion: Considering most mothers believed their child’s naps were important for their child and themselves, yet many wanted to change something about those naps and/or thought naps were problematic, intervention development is warranted focusing on daytime sleep issues to improve both child and family functioning. What is Known:
• Although maternal perceptions of overnight sleep in young children has been well studied, little is known about beliefs and cognitions regarding daytime sleep.
What is New:
• Mothers of infants and toddlers believe naps are beneficial for their child and are important for child mood, behavior, and sleep.
• Mothers find child naps valuable for themselves, allowing time for other activities.
... Da Untersuchungen mit gezieltem Schlafentzug oder starker Schlafrestriktion aus ethischen und praktischen Gründen mit Kindern und Kleinkindern nur sehr einge-schränkt möglich sind, sind weniger experimentelle Daten für diese Gruppen vorhanden. In den vorhandenen Studien zeigte sich jedoch, dass bereits 2,5 Jahre alte Kinder mit Veränderungen in ihren emotionalen Reaktionen und der Selbstregulation reagieren, wenn sie ein gewohntes Nickerchen nicht halten (Berger et al., 2012;Miller et al., 2015). Im Schulalter verändern sich kognitive Leistungen nach Schlafrestriktion (Randazzo et al., 1998;Sadeh et al., 2003). ...
Zusammenfassung: Schlaf ist ein hoch komplexer Zustand. Wie, wann und wie lange Menschen schlafen verändert sich stark über die Lebensspanne. In jeder Entwicklungsphase gibt es aber enge Zusammenhänge zwischen Schlaf- und Wachphasen. Aktuelle Befunde zeigen einerseits, dass Schlaf wesentliche Auswirkungen auf verschiedene Bereiche des menschlichen Erlebens und Verhaltens hat. Andererseits wirken sich Umweltfaktoren und individuelle Faktoren auf das Schlafverhalten aus. Diese komplexen bidirektionalen Zusammenhänge werden kurz- und langfristig sichtbar. Das Wissen über Schlaf und Schlafstörungen, ihre Ursachen und Konsequenzen, ist jedoch bei weitem nicht vollständig, insbesondere für die frühen Entwicklungsabschnitte. Die Beiträge in dem vorliegenden Themenheft adressieren aktuelle Forschungslücken zum Themenbereich Schlaf und Schlafprobleme im Entwicklungsverlauf, vom Säuglings- bis zum Jugendalter.
... Even though this difference may not be clinically relevant, it may reflect large differences at the population-level. Experimental studies with young children showed that even light levels of sleep deprivation over just a few days can impair the ability of emotion-and self-regulation, which are potential risk factors for problem behavior [43,44]. ...
Short sleep duration has been linked to adverse behavioral and cognitive outcomes in schoolchildren, but few studies examined this relation in preschoolers. We aimed to investigate the association between parent-reported sleep duration at 3.5 years and behavioral and cognitive outcomes at 5 years in European children. We used harmonized data from five cohorts of the European Union Child Cohort Network: ALSPAC, SWS (UK); EDEN, ELFE (France); INMA (Spain). Associations were estimated through DataSHIELD using adjusted generalized linear regression models fitted separately for each cohort and pooled with random-effects meta-analysis. Behavior was measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Language and non-verbal intelligence were assessed by the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence or the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities. Behavioral and cognitive analyses included 11,920 and 2981 children, respectively (34.0%/13.4% of the original sample). In meta-analysis, longer mean sleep duration per day at 3.5 years was associated with lower mean internalizing and externalizing behavior percentile scores at 5 years (adjusted mean difference: − 1.27, 95% CI [− 2.22, − 0.32] / − 2.39, 95% CI [− 3.04, − 1.75]). Sleep duration and language or non-verbal intelligence showed trends of inverse associations, however, with imprecise estimates (adjusted mean difference: − 0.28, 95% CI [− 0.83, 0.27] / − 0.42, 95% CI [− 0.99, 0.15]). This individual participant data meta-analysis suggests that longer sleep duration in preschool age may be important for children’s later behavior and highlight the need for larger samples for robust analyses of cognitive outcomes. Findings could be influenced by confounding or reverse causality and require replication.
... Importantly, prior work has shown that poorer sleep quality is linked to lower HRV and less vagal withdrawal in the face of challenge (El-Sheikh et al., 2013;Gueron-Sela et al., 2017). Furthermore, children's sleep quality has also been linked to regulatory abilities, with poorer sleep being related to poorer regulatory responses (Miller et al., 2015;Williams et al., 2017). Thus, it is possible that the consistent use of a tablet to help infants fall asleep may have detrimental impact on infants' emerging regulatory systems. ...
A growing body of research has focused on the physiological impact of media on older children and adolescents. Less research has been focused on the potential physiological impact of media on infants and younger children, especially media designed to be age appropriate and educational in content. In this study, we examined respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in infants (N = 269, Mage = 17.13 months) while they co‐viewed an educational video clip that modeled emotion regulation and contrasted their physiological response to an unoccupied baseline and a frustration paradigm (arm‐restraint). Given parent reports showing the calming effect of educational media viewing in young children, we anticipated that a similar pattern of calming would be observed physiologically in infants. Results showed that relative to baseline, most infants demonstrated an increase in RSA while co‐viewing, suggesting greater parasympathetic (regulatory) activation consistent with behavioral calming. However, infants who demonstrated vagal withdrawal during co‐viewing (decrease in RSA) were more likely to have parents who used a tablet to help infants go to sleep at night. Vagal withdrawal was also associated with increased levels of negative affect observed during the co‐viewing task. Findings are discussed in relation to the contextual effect of co‐viewing age‐appropriate, educational media on children's physiological responses.
... Sleep prior to emotional experiences may be particularly important for the initial experience of emotionality that shapes the development of the subsequent memory, as the absence of sleep has been shown to heavily affect our mood (Carskadon and Dement, 1979;Reddy et al., 2017;Feng et al., 2018;Ben Simon et al., 2020;Tomaso et al., 2021), alter our perception of and response to emotional information (van der Helm et al., 2010;Minkel et al., 2011;Alfarra et al., 2015;Killgore et al., 2017;Tomaso et al., 2021), and inhibit our ability to regulate our emotional response when perceiving or experiencing emotional events (Killgore et al., 2008a;Killgore, 2013;Baum et al., 2014;Miller et al., 2015;Tomaso et al., 2021). Intriguingly, a growing body of evidence has indicated that sleep loss prior to viewing emotional stimuli may lead to hyperactivity of limbic regions such as the amygdala (Yoo et al., 2007a;Goldstein et al., 2013;Motomura et al., 2013;Goldstein-Piekarski et al., 2015), altered amygdala-prefrontal cortex (PFC) connectivity (Chuah et al., 2010;Killgore, 2013;Motomura et al., 2013), impaired or blunted behavioral responses to aversive stimuli (van der Helm et al., 2010;Alfarra et al., 2015;Pilcher et al., 2015;Killgore et al., 2017), and increased emotional responses to neutral stimuli (Tempesta et al., 2010;Simon et al., 2015). ...
For two decades, sleep has been touted as one of the primary drivers for the encoding, consolidation, retention, and retrieval of episodic emotional memory. Recently, however, sleep’s role in emotional memory processing has received renewed scrutiny as meta-analyses and reviews have indicated that sleep may only contribute a small effect that hinges on the content or context of the learning and retrieval episodes. On the one hand, the strong perception of sleep’s importance in maintaining memory for emotional events may have been exacerbated by publication bias phenomena, such as the “winner’s curse” and “file drawer problem.” On the other hand, it is plausible that there are sets of circumstances that lead to consistent and reliable effects of sleep on emotional memory; these circumstances may depend on factors such as the placement and quality of sleep relative to the emotional experience, the content and context of the emotional experience, and the probes and strategies used to assess memory at retrieval. Here, we review the literature on how sleep (and sleep loss) influences each stage of emotional episodic memory. Specifically, we have separated previous work based on the placement of sleep and sleep loss in relation to the different stages of emotional memory processing: (1) prior to encoding, (2) immediately following encoding during early consolidation, (3) during extended consolidation, separated from initial learning, (4) just prior to retrieval, and (5) post-retrieval as memories may be restructured and reconsolidated. The goals of this review are three-fold: (1) examine phases of emotional memory that sleep may influence to a greater or lesser degree, (2) explicitly identify problematic overlaps in traditional sleep–wake study designs that are preventing the ability to better disentangle the potential role of sleep in the different stages of emotional memory processing, and (3) highlight areas for future research by identifying the stages of emotional memory processing in which the effect of sleep and sleep loss remains under-investigated. Here, we begin the task of better understanding the contexts and factors that influence the relationship between sleep and emotional memory processing and aim to be a valuable resource to facilitate hypothesis generation and promote important future research.
... 16 (Horváth & Plunkett, 2018;Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2015;Berger et al., 2012;Kurdziel et al., 2013) 17 (Williams & Horst, 2014) 18 (Kurdziel et al., 2013) 19 (Liu et al., 2019) 20 (Hartzler, 2014;Saletin et al., 2017;Tietzel & Lack, 2001;Vgontzas et al., 2007) 21 (Faraut et al., 2017;Lo et al., 2017) ...
... For example, napping can benefit infants' learning in contexts as varied as problem solving, memory, and language (e.g., Berger & Scher, 2017;Gómez, Bootzin, & Nadel, 2006;Hupbach, Gomez, Bootzin, & Nadel, 2009;Konrad, Seehagen, Schneider, & Herbert, 2016). In infants, work on the impact of sleep deprivation or disruption has tended to focus on physiological outcomes, such as cardiac or respiratory changes (e.g., Franco et al., 2003;Johnson, 2001), but in older child populations, sleep deprivation has been demonstrated to have negative effects on emotional regulation in preschoolers (Berger, Miller, Seifer, Cares, & LeBourgeois, 2012;Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2015) and behavior and neurobehavioral functioning in school-age children (Sadeh, Gruber, & Raviv, 2002;Sadeh, Gruber, & Raviv, 2003). ...
To systematically examine the relation between motor milestone onset and disruption of night sleep in infancy, three families kept microgenetic, prospective, daily checklist diaries of their infants' motor behavior and sleep (197-313 observation days; 19,000 diary entries). Process control and interrupted time series analyses examined whether deviations from the moving average for night wakings and evening sleep duration were temporally linked to motor skill onset and tested for meaningful differences in individual sleep patterns before and after skill onset. Model assumptions defined skill onset as first day of occurrence or as mastery and moving average windows as 3, 7, or 14 days. Changes in infants' sleep patterns were associated with changing expertise for motor milestones. The temporal relation varied depending on infant and sleep parameter. Intensive longitudinal data collection may increase our understanding of micro-events in infant development.
... In toddlers, findings suggest that reduced sleep in the form of missing a nap produced a significant decline in the % time children facially expressed happiness, interest, and excitement when presented with a fun puzzle task compared to when they napped (Berger et al., 2012). Missing daytime sleep also significantly increased the % time children expressed negative emotion (primarily anxiety) and resulted in less-mature self-regulation strategies, such as self-soothing and negative self-appraisal, during a challenging unsolvable puzzle task (Miller et al., 2015). ...
Sleep, a basic biological need, is the primary behavioral state of infants and children. Sleep is often problematic in early childhood, with about 30% of infants and children reportedly not obtaining sufficient sleep. This article discusses the concept of “optimal” sleep in infants and children by presenting theoretical models for understanding sleep behavior and the development of sleep and circadian rhythms. It also addresses the questions of “optimal sleep for whom?”, “optimal sleep for what?”, and “what environmental factors influence optimal sleep?” Overall, data suggest high individual differences in sleep behavior and that early sleep indicators are central to health and developmental outcomes.
... 16 (Horváth & Plunkett, 2018;Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2015;Berger et al., 2012;Kurdziel et al., 2013) 17 (Williams & Horst, 2014) 18 (Kurdziel et al., 2013) 19 (Liu et al., 2019) 20 (Hartzler, 2014;Saletin et al., 2017;Tietzel & Lack, 2001;Vgontzas et al., 2007) 21 (Faraut et al., 2017;Lo et al., 2017) ...
... An estimated 25-40% of young children struggle with sleep, and this in turn also negatively impacts the parent's sleep and overall family well-being (Bonuck, Blank, True-Felt, & Chervin, 2016;Byars, Yolton, Rausch, Lanphear, & Beebe, 2012;Hysing et al., 2014). Numerous studies report the short-and longterm effects of inadequate amounts of sleep, variability in sleep timing, and/or poor quality sleep in early childhood, including behavior problems (Bates, Viken, Alexander, Beyers, & Stockton, 2002;Nelson, Nelson, Kidwell, James, & Espy, 2015;Paavonen, Porkka-Heiskanen, & Lahikainen, 2009), poor emotional regulation (Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2015;Williams & Sciberras, 2016), and impaired cognitive performance (Liu et al., 2012;Sadeh, Gruber, & Raviv, 2002), as well as marital tension, maternal depression and poorer well-being in parents (Bernier, Belanger, Bordeleau, & Carrier, 2013;Covington, Armstrong, & Black, 2018;El-Sheikh & Kelly, 2017;Tietze, Zernikow, Michel, & Blankenburg, 2014;Yuwen et al., 2016). ...
The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and design of a theoretically derived, family centered, and home-delivered health behavior change intervention to address behavioral sleep problems in young children, including modifications responsive to pilot study experiences. Sleep Health in Preschoolers (SHIP) is an intervention grounded in Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory and Bronfenbrenner's Socioecological framework that integrates an individualized, stepwise approach to include self-management skills and the inherent and dynamic interactions between individual child, parent, and family level factors and diverse socioecologic factors. SHIP is a personalized, tailored intervention that partners with parents to provide knowledge, motivation, and skills for setting and achieving goals, adapting to setbacks, and problem-solving in an iterative fashion to improve their child's sleep. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... However, only the sleep restriction group was used in the current analyses, and the order of the baseline and sleep restriction groups was not counterbalanced, which is why the study is labeled quasi-experimental. u Schumacher et al. [107] used an adapted version of the same task described in Miller et al. [106], in which 12 regulatory behaviors in response to an unsolvable puzzle task were coded. Only composite effect sizes for adaptive and maladaptive strategies were available for inclusion. ...
Study objectives
New theory and measurement approaches have facilitated nuanced investigation of how sleep loss impacts dimensions of affective functioning. To provide a quantitative summary of this literature, three conceptually related meta-analyses examined the effect of sleep restriction and sleep deprivation on mood, emotion, and emotion regulation across the lifespan (i.e., from early childhood to late adulthood).
Method
A total of 241 effect sizes from 64 studies were selected for inclusion, and multilevel meta-analytic techniques were used when applicable.
Results
There was a moderate, positive effect of sleep loss on negative mood (g = .45), which was stronger for studies with younger samples, as well as a large, negative effect of sleep loss on positive mood (g = -.93); type of sleep manipulation (i.e., restriction or deprivation) did not moderate either effect. After correcting for publication bias, a modest but significant negative effect emerged for the effect of sleep on emotion (g = .11); the valence of emotional stimuli did not change the direction of this effect, and type of sleep manipulation was also not a significant moderator. Finally, sleep restriction had a small, negative effect on adaptive emotion regulation (g = -.32), but no significant impact on maladaptive emotion regulation (g = .14); all studies on adaptive emotion regulation were conducted with youth samples.
Conclusions
Sleep loss compromises optimal affective functioning, though the magnitude of effects varies across components. Findings underscore the importance of sleep for healthy affective outcomes.
... Sleep problems in this early period may, therefore, be indicative of future emotional and behavioral problems [11]. The importance of sleep for emotional regulation may be a possible way of understanding the link between sleep and mental health; this was supported by an experimental study that showed that children with restricted naps could not solve difficult tasks and were less mature in their self-regulation strategies than their peers who had no restrictions on their naps [36]. Short sleep duration and sleep problems can directly prevent emotional regulation and increase nervousness and other negative effects, which are the main features of emotional and behavioral problems [37,38]. ...
Background
Childhood sleep problems have been associated with a number of negative health outcomes, but there is limited data on the relationship between sleep problems and social and emotional problems in preterm babies.
Objective
The aim of this study was to investigate sleep habits and the relationship between sleep problems and social and emotional problems in preterm infants with a corrected age of three years old.
Method
The study included 40 preterm children and 40 full-term children. In order to evaluate the sleep habits and social and emotional problems of the children, their mothers completed the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ) and the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment Scale (BITSEA) form.
Results
It has been found that preterm children had longer sleeplessness at night than full-term children and the frequency of night awakening was also higher in full-term children. There was no difference between preterm and full-term children in terms of sleep duration, sleep location and methods of falling asleep. Although there was no difference between the two groups in the BITSEA problem scores, the BITSEA competence scores were significantly lower in preterm children compared to full-term children. In addition, considering the relationship between sleep behaviors and social and emotional problems in preterm infants, a significant correlation was found between short sleep duration at night, total sleep duration, and lower BITSEA competence scores. A late sleep time and social and emotional subclinical problem scores were also found to be correlated.
Conclusion
According to the results of this study, no significant difference was found in terms of sleep behaviors between preterm and full-term three-year-old children. However, BITSEA competence scores were lower in preterm children and an association has been found between sleep behaviors and social and emotional problems.
... A systematic review has examined the association between sleep duration and a broad range of health indicators in children aged 0-4 years, where emotional regulation was one of the important outcomes [2]. Overall, a shorter sleep duration was associated with poorer emotional regulations (13/25 studies), and among these studies, 2 randomized studies (both randomized cross-over trails with high quality of evidence) showed better self-regulation strategies and emotional responses in the routine sleep versus the sleep restriction conditions [44,49]. ...
The early years of life are characterized by dramatic developmental changes. Within this important time period lies the transition from newborn to childhood. Sleep is one of the primary activities of the brain during early development and plays an important role in healthy cognitive and psychosocial development in early life. This paper will first review the normal sleep characteristics and their development in neonates and children, including architecture of sleep, development of a healthy sleep rhythm in early childhood, sleep recommendations and cultural disparity, as well as important factors for establishing a healthy sleep pattern during the first years of life, such as regular and consistent bedtime routine, safe and comfortable sleep environment, and appropriate sleep onset associations. This paper then provides recent updates of evidence of the effects of sleep on early brain development, particularly on learning and memory, emotional regulation, and general cognitive development through behavioral and neurophysiological studies. As regards the mechanism, many experimental sleep deprivation studies in animals and adults have attempted to explain the underlying mechanisms of sleep on cognition and the emotional brain. Future studies are expected to delineate the effects of sleep on brain structural and functional networks in the developing brain with the marked development of image acquisition approaches and the novel analysis tools for infants and young children in recent years.
... For example, household chaos may interfere with sleep, [60][61][62][63][64] which is important for selfregulation. 65,66 The association of sleep duration and risk of overweight/obesity may be stronger in boys, 67 with some studies finding an association between sleep duration and weight status among boys, but not girls. 60,61,68 Due to stronger associations between sleep and overweight in boys, household chaos may have stronger associations with boys' BMIz through sleep. ...
Background:
Associations between household chaos and childhood overweight have been identified, but the mechanisms of association are not clearly established in young children, with some studies linking higher chaos to increased obesity risk, whereas other studies link higher chaos to lower obesity risk. Given the lack of consistent findings and early sex differences in vulnerability to chaos, we examined child sex as a moderator of the chaos-child overweight association. We also tested these associations with self-regulation, as self-regulation has been implicated in understanding the chaos-obesity risk association in low-income toddlers.
Methods:
Parent-reported household chaos and observed child self-regulation were collected at baseline [n = 132; M age 23.0 months (standard deviation 2.8)]. Children's body mass index z-score (BMIz) was measured at 33 months. Multivariate linear regression models were used to assess whether child sex moderated the chaos-BMIz association. A three-way interaction between chaos, child sex, and self-regulation was also tested.
Results:
Child sex moderated the chaos-BMIz association (b = -0.11, p = 0.04) such that chaos was positively associated with BMIz among boys (b = 0.12, p = 0.003), but unrelated in girls (b = 0.01, p = 0.78). A three-way interaction with self-regulation indicated that a positive chaos-BMIz association existed only for boys with average (b = 0.12, p = 0.004) and low (b = 0.22, p < 0.001) self-regulation.
Conclusions:
Boys with poor self-regulation may be particularly vulnerable to obesogenic effects of chaotic households.
... For example, children who had shorter sleep duration from 1.5 years of age through early childhood were five times more likely to exhibit clinically significant levels of hyperactivity at age five than infants with a longer sleep duration (Touchette et al., 2009). Experimental studies manipulating sleep (e.g., Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & LeBourgeois, 2015) have also demonstrated links between sleep duration and parent-reported behavior scales. ...
Background
Previous studies have established links between poor sleep and negative developmental outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether young maltreated children demonstrate atypical sleep patterns and whether sleep duration is associated with emotional and behavioral problems.
Objective
Explore trajectories of sleep among Child Protective Services (CPS)-referred children and examine whether sleep duration is significantly associated with externalizing and internalizing symptoms, even when controlling for the home environment.
Participants
Participants included 197 children (Mage at first assessment = 10.24 months, SD = 6.39) whose parents were referred to CPS due to allegations of maltreatment.
Methods
Parents completed sleep diaries for their children at up to five time-points and the preschool version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) when children were approximately 2 years of age (Mage = 26.40 months, SD = 3.36). The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Scale (HOME) assessed the quality of the early home environment.
Results
Results from latent growth curve modeling demonstrated that CPS-referred children significantly varied (B = 3.28, SE = 0.90, p < .001) in the amount they slept in a 24-hour period at baseline (i.e., 4.1 months of age), and the amount of total sleep in a 24-hour period significantly decreased across time (B1 = −0.03, SE = 0.01, p < .001). When controlling for characteristics of the home environment, total sleep in a 24-hour period at baseline significantly inversely predicted externalizing (B = −1.03, SE = 0.06, p < .001) and internalizing symptoms (B = −0.19, SE = 0.03, p < .001) in early childhood.
Conclusions
This study is an important first step in exploring trajectories of sleep among CPS-referred children. Findings underscore sleep as a promising target for interventions aimed at promoting regulation and highlight the need for future research to examine sleep in maltreated children as a predictor of later developmental outcomes.
... A mix of review, correlational, and quasi-experimental studies describe mixed results of napping for children's cognition and learning [3,8e13]; a key distinguishing feature being the age and regular napping patterns of the children studied. Benefit for learning and emotional regulation is typically found for younger children, who are less likely to have ceased habitual napping [2,3, 11,12]. One study of preschool children (3e5 y) [9], reported a positive effect of napping on learning and memory consolidation, however these effects were only observed for habitual nappers (!5 d/wk). ...
... Insufficient and poor-quality sleep are associated with increased chances of being overweight, lower levels of academic achievement, and experiencing impairment in cognitive functioning and emotional regulation (Baum et al., 2014;Beebe, Rose, & Amin, 2010;Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2014;Neblett, Philip, Cogburn, & Sellers, 2006;Sadeh, Gruber, & Raviv, 2003;Snell, Adam, & Duncan, 2007). Scholars have attempted to identify the factors that contribute to children's and adolescents' sleep, and recent studies are finding disparities in sleep among ethnic/racial minority and among low socioeconomic status (SES) groups (Buckhalt, El-Sheikh, & Keller, 2007;Guglielmo, Gazmararian, Chung, Rogers, & Hale, 2018;Hoyniak et al., 2018;Kelly & El-Sheikh, 2018;Yanagi, Fujiwara, Hata, & Kondo, 2017). ...
To understand the developmental outcomes of Latinx children growing up poor in the United States, we examine how socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnic minority status jointly condition the development of Latinx children in the United States. To address these gaps, in this chapter we first present a brief demographic profile of Latinx in the United States to contextualize the later theoretical and empirical discussions. We then review theoretical frameworks that explain SES differences in Latinx home environments and examine how they have been used to explain disparities in Latinx children's outcomes. Third, we describe the current research on the early home environments of Latinx children of varying levels of parental SES. Fourth, we review the literature on Latinx children's inequalities noting the scarcity of research that compares Latinx to White children or Latinx to Black children compared to the studies that focus on the White-Black academic gap. Finally, we conclude by summarizing state of knowledge and offering suggestions for future directions. We focus on young children (0-8) due to space limitations but also because the early childhood period is foundational to later development and is where the effects of poverty most likely to have enduring effects.
... longitudinally associated with later social-emotional challenges including greater internalizing (e.g., anxiety, depression) and/or externalizing (e.g., aggression, inattention) behavior (Jansen et al., 2011;Mindell, Leichman, DuMond, & Sadeh, 2016;Sadeh et al., 2015;Sivertsen et al., 2015;Touchette et al., 2007). In young children (ages 30 to 36 months), missing a usual nap also contributes to greater emotional and behavioral self-regulation difficulties (Berger, Miller, Seifer, Cares, & LeBourgeois, 2012;Miller, Seifer, Crossin, & Lebourgeois, 2014). Obtaining adequate, good-quality sleepincluding daytime sleep in young childrenis thus likely an important factor contributing to children's social-emotional functioning, and vice versa. ...
Objective/Background: Insufficient and/or poor-quality sleep may contribute to poor social-emotional well-being, and vice versa, among young children who have experienced maltreatment. This study examined longitudinal associations between sleep and social-emotional functioning among a sample of infants and toddlers from families involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) for maltreatment.
Participants: Participants were 123 parents and their infant or toddler (baseline age 10 to 24 months) from families referred to CPS for maltreatment.
Methods: Data were collected at baseline and at 3, 6 and 9 months post-baseline. At all time points, parents completed a questionnaire about their child’s social-emotional functioning including internalizing behavior, externalizing behavior, and competence in social-emotional skills and social relatedness. At 3 months post-baseline, parents reported about their child’s sleep problems and daily napping behavior.
Results: Higher baseline externalizing behavior was associated with a greater propensity for sleep problems at 3 months post-baseline. Sleep problems at 3 months post-baseline were associated with higher internalizing and higher externalizing behavior at 9 months post-baseline. Daily napping at 3 months post-baseline was associated with lower internalizing behavior, lower externalizing behavior, and higher competence at 9 months post-baseline.
Conclusions: Among this sample of young children from families involved with CPS for maltreatment, parents’ concerns about their child having a sleep problem longitudinally associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior. Children’s daily napping behavior longitudinally associated with later internalizing behavior, externalizing behavior, and competence.
... An estimated 25-40% of young children struggle with sleep and this in turn also negatively impacts the parent's sleep and overall family well-being (Bonuck et al., 2016;Byars et al., 2012;Hysing et al., 2014). Numerous studies report the short-and longterm effects of inadequate amount of sleep, variability in sleep timing, and/or poor quality sleep in early childhood, including behavior problems (Bates et al., 2002;Nelson et al., 2015;Paavonen et al., 2009), poor emotional regulation (Miller et al., 2015;Williams & Sciberras, 2016), impaired cognitive performance (Liu et al., 2012;Sadeh et al., 2002), as well as, marital tension, maternal depression and poorer well-being in parents (Bernier et al., 2013;Covington et al., 2018;El-Sheikh & Kelly, 2017;Tietze et al., 2014;Yuwen et al., 2016). ...
Introduction
While multiple interventions for behavioral sleep problems in young children show short-term effectiveness, less evidence is available demonstrating long-term impact.
Methods
The Sleep Health in Preschoolers (SHIP) study is a randomized, active-controlled trial of a behavioral sleep intervention for preschool-aged children (30-71 months) from community settings screening positive on the CSHQ. After a 3 month acute phase of weekly intervention contact, the monthly maintenance phase lasted 9 months. Assessments at each timepoint included parent report of the Child Sleep/Wake Scale (CSWS). Children with 3+ datapoints between baseline and 24-months were included in this analysis (N=346); t-tests compared CSWS between groups at each timepoint, trajectory analysis identified CSWS patterns over time agnostic of intervention assignment, and multinomial logistic regression examined the impact of intervention assignment on CSWS trajectory.
Results
Mean age at baseline was 43.5 months (SD 10.25), 46% female. Although CSWS total scores were equivalent at baseline (3.63 control and 3.64 intervention, SD 0.57), we see significant improvements in intervention vs. control at 3 months (Cohen’s D=0.80 SDs, p<0.001), 6 months (0.61 SDs), 12 months (0.74 SDs), 18 months (0.67 SDs), and 24 months (0.52 SDs), all p<0.01. Trajectory analysis shows three underlying patterns of CSWS over time — 1) a group (N=98) seeing quick improvement sustained over time, 2) a group (N=169) seeing gradual improvement over time, and 2) a group (N=79) seeing worsening followed by gradual improvement. In the multinomial logistic regression with the “gradual improvement” as the referent category (51% of the intervention group and 47% of controls), those randomly allocated to intervention were significantly more likely to show the “quick improvement” trajectory (RRR=3.28, 95%CI 1.75-6.18) and significantly less likely to show “early worsening” trajectory (RRR=0.20, 95%CI 0.10-0.39).
Conclusion
The SHIP intervention significantly improved child sleep, with initial effects visible by 3 months and continued impact through at least 2 years after study start.
Support (If Any)
This study is funded by a grant (5R01HD071937, PI: Garrison) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.
Objective
Young children at-risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often experience sleep problems, which may exacerbate ADHD symptoms and related impairment. Yet, little is known about modifiable factors associated with the maintenance of sleep problems. This study examined the relationships among parenting practices, behavioral self-regulation skills, and sleep functioning in young children at-risk for ADHD.
Methods
Caregivers (94.2% female; 82.6% White) of 121 young children at-risk for ADHD (Mage = 4.04 years; 70.2% male; 71.9% White; 20.3% Hispanic) completed measures of parenting practices and child sleep. Children completed a lab-based task that measured behavioral self-regulation skills. Only pre-treatment data (before the delivery of behavioral parent education) were used for the study.
Results
Greater use of adaptive parenting strategies, but not child behavioral self-regulation, was associated with decreased bedtime resistance after controlling for caregivers’ marital status and education level. Additionally, adaptive parenting strategies moderated the relationship between child behavioral self-regulation and sleep distress, such that children with low behavioral self-regulation experienced less sleep distress when caregivers utilized more adaptive parenting strategies compared to caregivers who utilized less adaptive parenting strategies.
Conclusions
For pediatric health providers working with families with young children at-risk for ADHD presenting with sleep problems, psychoeducation on adaptive parenting practices as well as encouraging parents to utilize these strategies may potentially improve child sleep functioning.
This study presents the News Accessibility Platform (NAP), an AI-driven solution designed to improve news access for people with disabilities, particularly those with visual and auditory impairments. Recognizing the unique challenges these groups face in obtaining timely, accessible news, NAP utilizes artificial intelligence to convert multimedia content into formats that cater to diverse needs, including text-to-speech for the visually impaired and sign language interpretations for the deaf community. By leveraging adaptive technologies, NAP provides an inclusive news experience, enabling real-time access to global information. This case study explores the platform's design, development, and implementation, assessing its impact on users' engagement and access. Findings indicate that NAP significantly enhances information accessibility, empowering people with disabilities to stay informed and engaged with current events. This study contributes to discussions on inclusive media practices and the role of AI in facilitating equitable information access.
Early childhood naps support emotional memory, but benefits are only observed after overnight sleep. Whether emotional memory consolidation occurs during naps, or whether napping only prepares memories for overnight consolidation is unknown. We investigated whether naps protect emotional memories from interference, indicating consolidation. Between 2018 and 2020, 63 children in western Massachusetts preschools (30 female, 33 male; 33–67 months; 23.8% Hispanic, 87.3% White) learned faces paired with negative or neutral descriptions, followed by nap or wake. Before delayed recognition, half completed an interference task. Without interference, napping benefited recognition. With interference, children recognized fewer negative faces post‐nap (compared to wake), with overnight sleep attenuating this difference. Results suggest that naps initially destabilize emotional memories, possibly reflecting partial processing that promotes long‐term consolidation.
Background:
Preschool children in Asian countries, including Japan, sleep for a shorter duration at night than those in Europe and the USA. We examined the effects of the nighttime sleep duration on behavioral development in early childhood in Japan.
Methods:
We used data from a large Japanese nationwide, population-based, longitudinal survey that began in 2001. We restricted the study participants to children born after 37 gestational weeks, with a birth weight ≥ 2500 g and singleton births (n = 41 890). The nighttime sleep duration was examined at 2.5 years old. Responses to survey questions regarding age-appropriate behavior at 5.5 years old were used as indicators of behavioral development. We conducted logistic regression analyses with adjustment for confounding factors, with ≥11 h of nighttime sleep as the reference group.
Results:
The odds ratios for children who had ≤9 h of nighttime sleep, which was associated with being unable to listen with fidgeting and being unable to remain patient, were 1.26 (95% confidence interval, 1.14-1.39) and 1.27 (1.16-1.38), respectively. Children who had an irregular nighttime sleep duration were associated with age-appropriate behavioral inabilities. These results were similar in children who usually and sometimes took naps to those before stratification by the frequency of napping.
Conclusion:
A short nighttime sleep duration especially affects hyperactivity and impulsivity. An irregular nighttime sleep duration increases the inability to perform overall age-appropriate behaviors more than a short sleep duration. Ensuring a regular and sufficient nighttime sleep duration in early childhood is important for healthy behavioral development.
There is growing public health concern about the high prevalence of sleep deficiency in early childhood and the associated risk for sleep-associated poor health outcomes, including metabolic, cardiovascular, and mental health. The recent shift to conceptualize sleep health as a multidimensional construct, influenced by socioecological factors, highlights the potential role of sleep in health disparities. Understanding the development of sleep health and the emergence of sleep disorders in early life is a current priority in pediatric sleep research. Future behavioral sleep interventions should consider the multiple socioecological influences on children's sleep health and be tested using inclusive sampling methods.
Background
Self-regulation is a complex capacity that favors the modification of behavior in accordance with environmental demands.
Objective
This article aims to review the scientific literature that conceptualizes self-regulation, analyze its potential latent dimensions, identify the instruments used to measure this construct and the empirical findings associated with its neurobiological correlates.
Methods
A systematic review of the scientific literature published between 2015 and 2020. We include 29 empirical studies on children and adolescents self-regulatory capacity after combining the words self-regulation with cognition, brain and neurosciences.
Results
Most of the articles included are from North America. A PICOS analysis was performed to increase understanding of self-regulatory capacity. Two dimensions of self-regulation are identified, contributing to a more global conceptualization of the concept of self-regulation; A cognitive dimension associated with executive functions, effortful control and inhibitory control, among others, and a dimension associated with personality, including traits such as irritability, impulsivity, openness and hyperactivity. Next, the instruments used to measure self-regulation are described, followed by a report of the important neurobiological findings, specifically, activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Conclusion
Self-regulatory capacity is associated with a complex functioning that favors adaptive behavior and has neurobiological correlates.
During infancy, humans typically spend most of their time asleep. It is intuitively plausible that this state is important for development and well-being. But there has been a surprising dearth of knowledge regarding the causal role of sleep for specific cognitive processes during this period. Recent experimental evidence has revealed a causal role of sleep for early memory processes. By supporting the consolidation and further processing of recently acquired memories, sleep shapes emerging knowledge networks. In addition, infants’ sleep patterns likely shape their learning environment by influencing caregiver sleep and behavior. Based on recent research, recommendations for policy and practice include (a) allowing individualized sleep schedules in child care settings, (b) providing easily accessible information on sleep and sleep promotion to caregivers, (c) integrating findings from sleep research in the training of early childhood educators, and (d) providing flexible parental leave arrangements that promote sufficient sleep in infants and caregivers.
The present study assessed the efficacy of a behavioral intervention to enhance children’s sleep and reduce caloric intake and body mass index (BMI) change.
Seventy-eight children 8–11 years old who slept 9.5 h/night or less were randomized to the sleep intervention or to no treatment control. The primary outcome was 2-month change in the actigraph-estimated sleep period; changes in reported caloric intake, percent calories from fat, and BMI/BMI z-score (BMIz) were assessed.
Children randomized to intervention enhanced their sleep period by 40 ± 7 min/night relative to control (p < 0.001), and were more likely to increase their sleep period by 30 min/night or more (52% versus 15%, p = 0.003). No differences were observed for reported dietary intake or BMI/BMIz. However, in post-hoc analyses collapsing across groups, those who increased sleep by 30 min/night or more had lower BMI (−0.31 kg/m², p = 0.01) and BMIz (−0.07, p = 0.03) and reported fewer percent calories from fat at 2 months (−2.2%, p = 0.04).
A brief behavioral intervention can enhance children’s sleep, but did not result in changes in caloric intake or weight status. Enhancing sleep by 30 min/night or more may be beneficial for weight regulation.
A brief behavioral intervention improved children’s nocturnal sleep relative to no treatment control.
Given the many benefits of a good night’s sleep across domains of functioning, findings have significant implications for children’s health and wellbeing.
There were no differences between groups on eating behaviors or BMI.
However, across groups, children who increased their sleep period by at least 30 min/night, reported reduced intake from fat and evidenced lower BMI at 2 months.
Thus, a brief intervention can improve sleep and may have potential benefits for weight regulation.
Children's behavior changes from day to day, but the factors that contribute to its variability are understudied. We developed a novel repeated measures paradigm to study children's persistence by capitalizing on a task that children complete every day: toothbrushing (N = 81; 48% female; 36-47 months; 80% white, 14% Multiracial, 10% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 1% Black; 1195 observations collected between January 2019 and March 2020). Children brushed longer on days when their parents used more praise (d = .23) and less instruction (d = -.22). Sensitivity to mood, sleep, and parent stress varied across children, suggesting that identifying the factors that shape an individual child's persistence could lead to personalized interventions.
The concept of self-regulation appears frequently in nursing literature. Although the concept is well developed in nonnursing theories, its application in nursing has not been explored adequately. Most nursing authors address self-regulation in one of two ways. Some publish findings without a strong theoretical understanding of self-regulation. Others publish studies using a conglomeration of theorists' self-regulatory explanations without properly contextualizing the theoretical elements for nursing practice. For this concept exploration, the authors used Rodgers, B. L. (2005). Developing nursing knowledge: Philosophical traditions and influences . Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, evolutionary concept analysis method to determine the current use of self-regulation in pediatric nursing literature and trace the concept's recent development, changes, and expansion. This work provides a representation of self-regulation based on existing healthcare studies and suggests steps for concept clarification that could promote accurate use of the concept in future research.
Objective
Problems sleeping and stress are known to contribute to the development of suicide ideation. However, it is unclear how these risk factors interact longitudinally. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of problems sleeping on the development of suicide ideation in adolescence one year later and how the relationship changes with the addition of stress as a moderator.
Method
Data were collected from 153 adolescents (M age = 12.8, SD = 1.6) over three years as part of a larger study. Participants completed the MINI-Kid and Youth Self-Report, which were used to assess for suicidality. The Stress scale of the YSR was used to measure stress. Participants also completed the Adolescent Sleep Wake Scale, which was used to assess their perceptions of their sleep quality.
Results
Logistic moderation analyses demonstrated a significant interaction between ASWS and YSR Stress in the prediction of suicide ideation one year later, Wald χ²(1)=4.57, OR = 0.68, p < 0.05. Results demonstrated higher odds of endorsing SI as stress increased when sleep quality was poor (OR = 21.51) compared to when sleep quality was high (OR = 4.03), suggesting that adequate sleep may act as a protective factor against suicide ideation.
Conclusions
The results are indicative of long-term consequences of sleep on adolescent mental health, particularly when faced with high levels of stress. These results may have significant clinical implications for suicide prevention efforts as this relationship may help identify at-risk adolescents prior to the initial experience of suicide ideation.
Objectives
To examine whether increased socioeconomic disadvantage, indexed using a measure of community distress, was associated with variation in caregiver-reported early childhood sleep patterns and problems in a large US sample using a mobile health application (app).
Design
Cross-sectional.
Setting
Data were collected using the free, publicly available Johnson's Bedtime© baby sleep app.
Participants
A total of 14,980 caregivers (85.1% mothers) of children ages 6-35.9 months (M = 13.88 months; 52.6% boys) participated in this study.
Measures
Caregivers reported on child sleep using the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised. Socioeconomic disadvantage was indexed by zip code using the Distressed Communities Index (DCI), which combines seven US census indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage. DCI scores range from prosperous (lowest quintile) to distressed (highest quintile).
Results
Socioeconomic disadvantage was significantly associated with later bedtimes, longer sleep onset latency, and shorter nighttime and 24-hour (total) sleep duration, with children living in distressed communities showing the poorest sleep. However, caregivers living in distressed communities reported a significantly lower prevalence of overall child sleep problems (43% vs 58% in prosperous communities), and more confidence in managing child sleep (42% vs 34% in prosperous communities).
Conclusions
Children living in the most distressed communities have the poorest reported sleep patterns and bedtime behaviors; however, their caregivers are less likely to report problematic child sleep. These findings highlight the need for community-level sleep health promotion interventions, as well as further investigation of caregiver perceptions about child sleep and sleep health promotion among families living in socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts.
In 2014, Buysse published a novel definition of sleep health, raising awareness for the importance of this construct for individuals, populations, clinical care, and research. However, the original definition focused on adults, with the recommendation that it should be adapted for children and adolescents. As children live within a complex and dynamic system, and may not always have control over their own sleep, this theoretical review will examine and apply Buysse’s five dimensions of sleep health within the context of pediatrics. In addition, using examples from the pediatric sleep literature we introduce a modified definition that takes into consideration the influence of the socio-ecological system within which children live, and the sleep-related behaviors that are critical in supporting or hindering sleep health. Finally, we discuss how the proposed theoretical framework, Peds B-SATED, can be applied to clinical practice, research, and training in the field of pediatric sleep.
Background
This study examined whether distinct sleep problem trajectories from infancy through middle childhood were associated with multiple aspects of child well‐being at ages 10–11 years.
Methods
Data were from the first six waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children – Birth Cohort (5,107 children recruited at birth). Caregivers reported on child sleep problems at each time point. A combination of caregiver‐reported, teacher‐reported and child‐completed tasks were used to index child well‐being outcomes at ages 10–11 years including emotional/behavioural functioning (internalizing and externalizing symptoms; self‐control), health‐related quality of life, cognitive skills and academic achievement.
Results
Latent class analysis identified five distinct sleep problem trajectories over time: persistent sleep problems through middle childhood (7.7% of the sample), limited infant/preschool sleep problems (9.0%), increased middle childhood sleep problems (17.0%), mild sleep problems over time (14.4%) and no sleep problems (51.9%). Compared to those with no sleep problems, children with persistent sleep problems had the greatest impairments across all outcomes except cognitive skills (perceptual reasoning), with moderate to large effect sizes. Children with increased middle childhood sleep problems similarly experienced greater internalizing and externalizing symptoms and worse quality of life, but few academic impairments. Both the limited infant/preschool sleep problems and mild increases over time trajectories also showed internalizing concerns and worse caregiver‐reported quality of life, although effects were smaller than the other sleep trajectories.
Conclusions
The linkages between sleep problems and negative child outcomes across domains underscore the importance of early identification and targeted intervention to address sleep problems and promote child well‐being.
Actigraphy is a cost‐efficient method to estimate sleep–wake patterns over long periods in natural settings. However, the lack of methodological standards in actigraphy research complicates the generalization of outcomes. A rapidly growing methodological diversity is visible in the field, which increasingly necessitates the detailed reporting of methodology. We address this problem and evaluate the current state of the art and recent methodological developments in actigraphy reporting with a special focus on infants and young children. Through a systematic literature search on PubMed (keywords: sleep, actigraphy, child *, preschool, children, infant), we identified 126 recent articles (published since 2012), which were classified and evaluated for reporting of actigraphy. Results show that all studies report on the number of days/nights the actigraph was worn. Reporting was good with respect to device model, placement and sleep diary, whereas reporting was worse for epoch length, algorithm, artefact identification, data loss and definition of variables. In the studies with infants only (n = 58), the majority of articles (62.1%) reported a recording of actigraphy that was continuous across 24 hr. Of these, 23 articles (63.9%) analysed the continuous 24‐hr data and merely a fifth used actigraphy to quantify daytime sleep. In comparison with an evaluation in 2012, we observed small improvements in reporting of actigraphy methodology. We propose stricter adherence to standards in reporting methodology in order to streamline actigraphy research with infants and young children, to improve comparability and to facilitate big data ventures in the sleep community.
Purpose:
To describe sleep patterns, problems, and ecology among toddlers (13 to 36 months) from families referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) for maltreatment and to compare sleep duration among a subgroup (24- to 36-month-olds) to previously published population-based data.
Design and methods:
A secondary analysis of a larger longitudinal study was conducted. Participants included 113 parent-toddler dyads recruited out of CPS offices based on having a recent maltreatment referral. Parents reported about their toddler's sleep at two time points (approximately six months apart).
Results:
At the earlier and later time points, respectively, mean sleep duration was 11.03 and 10.90 h (nighttime), 1.36 and 1.36 h (daytime), and 12.47 and 12.28 h (total 24-h). Of the toddlers, 24% and 17% had two or more nighttime awakenings, 34% and 33% had at least a somewhat hard time falling asleep, and 25% and 26% had difficulty sleeping alone. Mean bedtimes were 8:50 pm and 8:58 pm. Nighttime sleeping arrangement/location, nap arrangement/location, and method of falling asleep at night varied. Compared to the population-based data, nighttime sleep duration was 43 min longer and nap duration was 46 min shorter in the CPS sample.
Conclusions:
Symptoms of behavioral sleep problems were common in this sample of toddlers from families referred to CPS for maltreatment. Distribution of sleep, but not total 24-hour sleep, differed significantly between the CPS sample and the population-based data.
Practice implications:
Nurses caring for toddlers from families involved with CPS can play an integral role promoting sleep health and addressing behavioral sleep problems.
The onset of monophasic sleep, in which napping ceases and sleep consolidates into a single night period, is a key developmental milestone of childhood. Yet to date, there is little consensus regarding the timing of cessation of napping in children. The aim of the current study is to examine global evidence regarding napping patterns in childhood, and, through meta-analysis, describe patterns of napping cessation and duration observed in children aged 0-12 y. A systematic search of all published, original research articles reporting children's napping patterns, by age, was conducted. The quality of studies was assessed, and meta-analysis of eligible studies undertaken. Risk of bias and heterogeneity of measurement was high. Current evidence indicates that less than 2.5% of children cease napping prior to age 2, while 94% cease napping by age 5. The preschool period (3-5 y; 36-60 mo) represents a particularly dynamic period in napping cessation, with large variation in rates of napping across studies evidencing potential ecological effects. Future studies should focus on understanding of the underlying mechanisms explaining individual variations in napping patterns and the extent to which patterns of napping may represent a marker of child development.
The present study seeks to explore the intersectionality of ethnicity/race and socioeconomic status (SES) among ethnic/racial minority adolescents in their developmental contexts, examining its implications for sleep disparities and the roles of discrimination and ethnic/racial identity (ERI; i.e., adolescents' understanding and feelings about who they are in relation to their ethnic/racial group). With 350 adolescents (Asian 41.4%, Black, 21.7%, and Latinx 36.9%, female = 69.1%, Mage = 14.27), we conducted a latent class analysis (LCA) to identify latent classes of adolescents' ethnicity/race, ethnic/racial diversity in their schools and neighborhoods along with SES of their families, schools, and neighborhoods. Next, with hierarchical regression, we tested the association between class membership and subjective and objective sleep duration and quality, followed by the moderating effect of discrimination and ERI. We expected to find adolescents living in low diversity and low SES across various developmental contexts to experience lower levels of subjective and objective sleep duration and quality compared to their counterparts. We also expected to find exacerbating effects of discrimination and ERI exploration, and protective effects of ERI commitment in these associations. Three latent groups were identified (C1: “Black/Latinx adolescents in low/moderate SES families in varying diversity and low SES schools and neighborhoods,” C2: “Predominantly Latinx adolescents in low SES families and moderate diversity and SES schools and neighborhoods,” and C3: “Predominantly Asian adolescents in low/moderate SES families in moderate/high diversity and SES schools and neighborhoods”). The class memberships to C1 and C2 were associated with compromised sleep duration and quality compared to C3. An interaction effect of discrimination was found for C1 in subjective sleep duration and for C2 in objective sleep duration. While no interactions were found for ERI, ERI commitment had a direct association with objective sleep duration and quality. Interpretations and implications for intersectionality approach in studies on sleep disparities and the roles of discrimination and ERI are discussed.
Study Objectives
Various aspects of human performance were assessed in children after sleep loss.
Participants
Sixteen children (7 males, 9 females) between the ages of 10 and 14 years
Design and Interventions
Children were randomly assigned to either a control (CTRL) group, with 11 hours in bed, or an experimental sleep restriction (SR) group, with 5 hours in bed, on a single night in the sleep laboratory.
Measurements
Both groups were evaluated the following day with a battery of performance and sleepiness measures. Psychomotor and cognitive performance tests were given during four 1-hour testing sessions at 2-hour intervals.
Results
A multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) documented shorter latencies for SR children than controls. Significant treatment differences were discovered in three of four variables of verbal creativity, including fluency, flexibility, and average indices. There were also group differences found on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), which may be indicative of difficulty learning new abstract concepts. Measures of rote performance and less-complex cognitive functions, including measures of memory and learning and figural creativity, did not show differences between groups, perhaps because motivation could overcome sleepiness-related impairment for these tasks.
Conclusions
Higher cognitive functions in children, such as verbal creativity and abstract thinking, are impaired after a single night of restricted sleep, even when routine performance is relatively maintained.
Background
The relationship between inadequate sleep and mood has been well-established in adults and is supported primarily by correlational data in younger populations. Given that adolescents often experience shortened sleep on school nights, we sought to better understand the effect of experimentally induced chronic sleep restriction on adolescents' mood and mood regulation. Methods
Fifty healthy adolescents, ages 14-17, completed a 3-week sleep manipulation protocol involving a baseline week, followed by a sleep restriction (SR) condition (6.5hr in bed per night for five nights) and healthy sleep duration (HS) condition (10hr in bed per night for five nights). The study used a randomized, counterbalanced, crossover experimental design. Participants' sleep was monitored at home via self-report and actigraphy. At the end of each condition, participants and their parents completed questionnaires of mood and mood regulation. To assess for expectancy effects, we also analyzed parent and teen ratings of hyperactivity/impulsivity, which prior research suggests is not sensitive to SR in adolescents. Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests compared questionnaire outcomes across the two conditions. ResultsParticipants averaged 2.5 more hours of sleep per night during HS relative to SR. Compared with HS, adolescents rated themselves as significantly more tense/anxious, angry/hostile, confused, and fatigued, and as less vigorous (p=.001-.01) during SR. Parents and adolescents also reported greater oppositionality/irritability and poorer emotional regulation during SR compared with HS (p<.05). There were no cross-condition differences in depression or hyperactivity/impulsivity (p>.05). Conclusions
Findings complement prior correlational study results to show that after only a few days of shortened sleep, at a level of severity that is experienced regularly by millions of adolescents on school nights, adolescents have worsened mood and decreased ability to regulate negative emotions.
Pediatric, clinical, and research data suggest that insufficient sleep causes tiredness and daytime difficulties in terms of attention-focusing, learning, and impulse modulation in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or in those with ADHD and primary sleep disorders. The aim of the present study was to examine whether sleep duration was associated with ADHD-like symptoms in healthy, well-developing school-aged children.
Thirty-five healthy children (20 boys, 15 girls), aged 7-11 years participated in the present study. Each child wore an actigraphic device on their nondominant wrist for two nights prior to use of polysomnography to assess their typical sleep periods. On the third night, sleep was recorded via ambulatory assessment of sleep architecture in the child's natural sleep environment employing portable polysomnography equipment. Teachers were asked to report symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity on the revised Conners Teacher Rating Scale.
Shorter sleep duration was associated with higher levels of teacher-reported ADHD-like symptoms in the domains of cognitive problems and inattention. No significant association between sleep duration and hyperactivity symptoms was evident.
Short sleep duration was found to be related to teacher-derived reports of ADHD-like symptoms of inattention and cognitive functioning in healthy children.
Secure parent-child relationships are implicated in children's self-regulation, including the ability to self-soothe at bedtime. Sleep, in turn, may serve as a pathway linking attachment security with subsequent emotional and behavioral problems in children. We used path analysis to examine the direct relationship between attachment security and maternal reports of sleep problems during toddlerhood and the degree to which sleep serves as a pathway linking attachment with subsequent teacher-reported emotional and behavioral problems. We also examined infant negative emotionality as a vulnerability factor that may potentiate attachment-sleep-adjustment outcomes. Data were drawn from 776 mother-infant dyads participating in the National Institute of Child and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. After statistically adjusting for mother and child characteristics, including child sleep and emotional and behavioral problems at 24 months, we found no evidence for a statistically significant direct path between attachment security and sleep problems at 36 months; however, there was a direct relationship between sleep problems at 36 months and internalizing problems at 54 months. Path models that examined the moderating influence of infant negative emotionality demonstrated significant direct relationships between attachment security and toddler sleep problems and between sleep problems and subsequent emotional and behavioral problems, but only among children characterized by high negative emotionality at 6 months. In addition, among this subset, there was a significant indirect path between attachment and internalizing problems through sleep problems. These longitudinal findings implicate sleep as one critical pathway linking attachment security with adjustment difficulties, particularly among temperamentally vulnerable children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Research Findings: Although the role of language and private speech in the development of behavioral self-regulation has been studied, relations between behavioral self-regulation and children's experiences with other symbolic systems, such as music, have not yet been explored. Eighty-nine 3- and 4-year-old children (42 of whom had been enrolled in Kindermusik music and movement classes, and 47 demographically similar children who had not experienced structured early childhood music classes) completed a battery of laboratory self-regulation tasks and a selective attention task during which their private speech was reliably transcribed and categorized. Children currently enrolled in Kindermusik classes showed better self-regulation than those who were not currently enrolled (d = .41), and they also used more relevant private speech during the selective attention task (d = .57), a verbal strategy that was positively related to performance. Children exposed to the music program were also more likely to engage in the facilitative strategy of singing/humming to themselves during a waiting period in which they had to inhibit their desire to examine a gift, and they were less likely to call out socially to the experimenter, a strategy negatively associated with performance and self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Implications for early childhood education are discussed.
A correlational study examined relationships between motivational orientation, self-regulated learning, and classroom academic performance for 173 seventh graders from eight science and seven English classes. A self-report measure of student self-efficacy, intrinsic value, test anxiety, self-regulation, and use of learning strategies was administered, and performance data were obtained from work on classroom assignments. Self-efficacy and intrinsic value were positively related to cognitive engagement and performance. Regression analyses revealed that, depending on the outcome measure, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and test anxiety emerged as the best predictors of performance. Intrinsic value did not have a direct influence on performance but was strongly related to self-regulation and cognitive strategy use, regardless of prior achievement level. The implications of individual differences in motivational orientation for cognitive engagement and self-regulation in the classroom are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Abstract— Children’s ability to direct their attention and behavior to learning tasks provides a foundation for healthy social and academic development in early schooling. Although an explosion of research on this topic has occurred in recent years, the field has been hindered by a lack of conceptual clarity, as well as debate over underlying components and their significance in predicting school success. In addition, few measures tap these skills as children move into formal schooling. This article describes the aspects of self-regulation that are most important for early school success. It then discusses methodological challenges in reliably and validly assessing these skills in young children and describes recent advances in direct measures of self-regulation that are reliable and ecologically valid and that predict children’s school success. It concludes by summarizing critical issues in the study of self-regulation in school contexts and discussing next steps.
Stress often co-occurs with inadequate sleep duration, and both are believed to impact mood and emotion. It is not yet known whether inadequate sleep simply increases the intensity of subsequent stress responses or interacts with stressors in more complicated ways. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of one night of total sleep deprivation on subjective stress and mood in response to low-stress and high-stress cognitive testing conditions in healthy adult volunteers in two separate experiments (total N = 53). Sleep was manipulated in a controlled, laboratory setting and stressor intensity was manipulated by changing difficulty of cognitive tasks, time pressure, and feedback about performance. Sleep-deprived participants reported greater subjective stress, anxiety, and anger than rested controls following exposure to the low-stressor condition, but not in response to the high-stressor condition, which elevated negative mood and stress about equally for both sleep conditions. These results suggest that sleep deprivation lowers the psychological threshold for the perception of stress from cognitive demands but does not selectively increase the magnitude of negative affect in response to high-stress performance demands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Emotions and behaviors observed during challenging tasks are hypothesized to be valuable indicators of young children's motivation, the assessment of which may be particularly important for children at risk for school failure. The current study demonstrated reliability and concurrent validity of a new observational assessment of motivation in young children. Head Start graduates completed challenging puzzle and trivia tasks during their kindergarten year. Children's emotion expression and task engagement were assessed based on their observed facial and verbal expressions and behavioral cues. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that observed persistence and shame predicted teacher ratings of children's academic achievement, whereas interest, anxiety, pride, shame, and persistence predicted children's social skills and learning-related behaviors. Children's emotional and behavioral responses to challenge thus appeared to be important indicators of school success. Observation of such responses may be a useful and valid alternative to self-report measures of motivation at this age.
RESEARCH FINDINGS: In this article, we review research on the relations of self-regulation and its dispositional substrate, effortful control, to variables involved in school success. First, we present a conceptual model in which the relation between self-regulation/effortful control and academic performance is mediated by low maladjustment and high-quality relationships with peers and teachers, as well as school engagement. Then we review research indicating that effortful control and related skills are indeed related to maladjustment, social skills, relationships with teachers and peers, school engagement, as well as academic performance. PRACTICE OR POLICY: Initial findings are consistent with the view that self-regulatory capacities involved in effortful control are associated with the aforementioned variables; only limited evidence of mediated relations is currently available.
To quantitatively describe the effects of sleep loss, we used meta-analysis, a technique relatively new to the sleep research field, to mathematically summarize data from 19 original research studies. Results of our analysis of 143 study coefficients and a total sample size of 1.932 suggest that overall sleep deprivation strongly impairs human functioning. Moreover, we found that mood is more affected by sleep deprivation than either cognitive or motor performance and that partial sleep deprivation has a more profound effect on functioning than either long-term or short-term sleep deprivation. In general, these results indicate that the effects of sleep deprivation may be underestimated in some narrative reviews, particularly those concerning the effects of partial sleep deprivation.
Various aspects of human performance were assessed in children after sleep loss.
Sixteen children (7 males, 9 females) between the ages of 10 and 14 years.
Children were randomly assigned to either a control (CTRL) group, with 11 hours in bed, or an experimental sleep restriction (SR) group, with 5 hours in bed, on a single night in the sleep laboratory.
Both groups were evaluated the following day with a battery of performance and sleepiness measures. Psychomotor and cognitive performance tests were given during four 1-hour testing sessions at 2-hour intervals.
A multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) documented shorter latencies for SR children than controls. Significant treatment differences were discovered in three of four variables of verbal creativity, including fluency, flexibility, and average indices. There were also group differences found on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), which may be indicative of difficulty learning new abstract concepts. Measures of rote performance and less-complex cognitive functions, including measures of memory and learning and figural creativity, did not show differences between groups, perhaps because motivation could overcome sleepiness-related impairment for these tasks.
Higher cognitive functions in children, such as verbal creativity and abstract thinking, are impaired after a single night of restricted sleep, even when routine performance is relatively maintained.
Relatively little is known about sleep habits, sleep disturbances, and the consequences of disordered sleep in school-aged children. This descriptive study examined a variety of common sleep behaviors in a group of 494 elementary school children, grades kindergarten through fourth, using a battery of sleep questionnaires that included parent, teacher, and self-report surveys. The prevalence of parent-defined sleep problems ranged from 3.7% (Sleep-Disordered Breathing) to 15.1% (Bedtime Resistance), with 37% of the overall sample described as having significant sleep problems in at least one sleep domain. Younger children were more likely than older children to have sleep problems noted by parents (particularly bedtime struggles and night wakings), as well as by teacher and self-report. Children tended to identify more sleep problems by self-report, particularly sleep-onset delay and night wakings, than did their parents. Overall, approximately 10% of the sample was identified by all three measures as having significant problems with daytime sleepiness. The results of this study emphasize the importance of screening for sleep disorders in this age group in the clinical setting. The need for consensus regarding the use of sleep screening instruments and the definition of "problem" sleep in school-aged children is also discussed.
Child development involves both reactive and self-regulatory mechanisms that children develop in conjunction with social norms. A half-century of research has uncovered aspects of the physical basis of attentional networks that produce regulation, and has given us some knowledge of how the social environment may alter them. In this paper, we discuss six forms of developmental plasticity related to aspects of attention. We then focus on effortful or executive aspects of attention, reviewing research on temperamental individual differences and important pathways to normal and pathological development. Pathologies of development may arise when regulatory and reactive systems fail to reach the balance that allows for both self-expression and socially acceptable behavior. It remains a challenge for our society during the next millennium to obtain the information necessary to design systems that allow a successful balance to be realized by the largest possible number of children.
The aim of this study was to examine the associations between sleep and neurobehavioral functioning (NBF) in school-age children. These variables were assessed for 135 unreferred, healthy school children (69 boys and 66 girls), from second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade classes. Objective assessment methods were used on the participants in their regular home settings. Sleep was monitored using actigraphy for 5 consecutive nights; and NBF was assessed using a computerized neurobehavioral evaluation system, administered twice, at different times of the day. Significant correlations between sleep-quality measures and NBF measures were found, particularly in the younger age group. Children with fragmented sleep were characterized by lower performance on NBF measures, particularly those associated with more complex tasks such as a continuous performance test and a symbol-digit substitution test. These children also had higher rates of behavior problems as reported by their parents on the Child Behavior Checklist. These results highlight the association between sleep quality, NBF, and behavior regulation in child development; and raise important questions about the origins of these associations and their developmental and clinical significance.
To study the associations between sleep quality/quantity and performance in auditory/visual working memory tasks of different load levels.
Sixty schoolchildren aged 6 to 13 years from normal school classes voluntarily participated. Actigraphy measurement was done during a typical school week for 72 consecutive hours. It was timed together with the working memory experiments to obtain information on children's sleep during that period. The n-back task paradigm was used to examine auditory and visual working memory functions.
Lower sleep efficiency and longer sleep latency were associated with a higher percentage of incorrect responses in working memory tasks at all memory load levels (partial correlations, controlling for age, all p values < .05, except in visual 0-back and auditive 2-back tasks); shorter sleep duration was associated with performing tasks at the highest load level only (partial correlations, controlling for age,p < .05). Also in general linear models (controlling for age, gender, and socioeconomic status), sleep efficiency (F = 11.706, p = .050) and latency (F = 3.588, p = .034) were significantly associated with the mean incorrect response rate in auditory working memory tasks.
Sleep quality and quantity affect performance of working memory tasks in school-age children. In children with learning difficulties the possibility of underlying sleep problems should be excluded.
To describe behavioral sleep/wake patterns of young children from actigraphy and mothers' reports, assess age-group and sex differences, describe daytime napping, and investigate the impact of family demographic variables on sleep-wake measures.
Cross-sectional sample of children wore actigraphs for 1 week; mothers kept concurrent diaries.
Children studied in their homes.
169 normal healthy children in 7 age groups (12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, and 60 months old); 84 boys and 85 girls. Interventions: N/A.
Nocturnal sleep/wake measures estimated from activity recordings using a validated algorithm; mothers' reports of nocturnal sleep/wake patterns and daytime naps obtained from concurrent diaries. Bedtimes and sleep start times were earliest and time in bed and sleep period times were longest for 12-month-old children. Rise time, sleep end time, and nocturnal sleep minutes did not differ across age groups. Actigraphic estimates indicated that children aged 1 to 5 years slept an average of 8.7 hours at night. Actigraph-based nocturnal wake minutes and wake bouts were higher than maternal diary reports for all age groups. Daytime naps decreased monotonically across age groups and accounted for most of the difference in 24-hour total sleep over age groups. Children in families with lower socioeconomic status had later rise times, longer time in bed, more nocturnal wake minutes and bouts, and more night-to-night variability in bedtime and sleep period time. Children with longer naps slept less at night.
Individual differences in sleep/wake measures reflect characteristics of children, parents, or parent-child interactions.
This study compared actigraphy with videosomnography in preschool-aged children, with special emphasis on the accuracy of detection of nighttime awakenings.
Fifty-eight participants wore an actigraph for 1 week and were videotaped for 2 nights while wearing the actigraph.
Participants were solitary sleepers, studied in their homes.
One group (n = 22) was diagnosed with autism, another group (n = 11) had developmental delays without autism, and a third group (n = 25) were typically developing children; age ranged from 28 to 73 months (mean age 47 months); 29 boys and 29 girls.
N/A.
Nocturnal sleep and wakefulness were scored from simultaneously recorded videosomnography and actigraphy. The accuracy of actigraphy was examined in an epoch-by-epoch comparison with videosomnography. Findings were 94% overall agreement, 97% sensitivity, and 24% specificity. Statistical corrections for overall agreement and specificity resulted in an 89% weighted-agreement and 27% adjusted specificity.
Actigraphy has poor agreement for detecting nocturnal awakenings, compared with video observations, in preschool-aged children.
The purpose of the present study was to examine 14- to 16-month-old infants' emotional reactivity and use of behavioral strategies for regulating distress during states of both alert wakefulness and fatigue. Twenty infants were tested at a time when their mothers expected them to be awake and alert, and twenty infants were tested at the time when their morning or afternoon nap typically began. Infants were observed responding to five mildly stressful episodes in their homes. Fatigued infants were more distressed than alert infants by separation from their mother and by being prevented from handling an attractive toy. Fatigued infants also engaged in fewer mature regulatory behaviors and more immature regulatory behaviors during the episodes. The infants' experiences with nonparental child care also were associated with their emotional reactivity. The relevance of these findings to parents and researchers and the benefits to infants of learning to handle stress when fatigued are discussed.
A correlational study examined relationships between motivational orientation, self-regulated learning, and classroom academic performance for 173 seventh graders from eight science and seven English classes. A self-report measure of student self-efficacy, intrinsic value, test anxiety, self-regulation, and use of learning strategies was administered, and performance data were obtained from work on classroom assignments. Self-efficacy and intrinsic value were positively related to cognitive engagement and performance. Regression analyses revealed that, depending on the outcome measure, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and test anxiety emerged as the best predictors of performance. Intrinsic value did not have a direct influence on performance but was strongly related to self-regulation and cognitive strategy use, regardless of prior achievement level. The implications of individual differences in motivational orientation for cognitive engagement and self-regulation in the classroom are discussed.
The overall purpose of these three investigations was to test the usefulness of private speech utterances as a means for understanding children's verbal self‐guidance during school task performance. A private speech coding system was derived from synthesizing the literature on private speech (e.g., Berk, 1986a), self‐regulated learning (e.g., Rohrkemper, 1989), and metacognition (Brown, 1987; Meichenbaum, 1977). Also, Vygotsky's theory of verbal self‐regulation (1934/1962, 1934/1987) served as the guiding theoretical perspective. To analyze verbal self‐guidance and to gather information about the importance of student characteristics (namely, autonomy, n = 118; academically advanced, n = 34; and creativity, n = 16), three separate studies using a different data source for each study, were conceptualized. Similar patterns of findings emerged; groups designated as more autonomous and more academically advanced used significantly less task‐irrelevant private speech; all groups used less nonfacilitative task‐relevant, and also more facilitative, metacognitive task‐relevant private speech. Findings are important to the explanation of young children's patterns of self‐guiding speech for school tasks and for how this speech may be an important link to cognitive and metacognitive development and to self‐regulated learning.
The purpose of the present study was to examine 14- to 16-month-old infants' emotional reactivity and use of behavioral strategies for regulating distress during states of both alert wakefulness and fatigue. Twenty infants were tested at a time when their mothers expected them to be awake and alert, and twenty infants were tested at the time when their morning or afternoon nap typically began. Infants were observed responding to five mildly stressful episodes in their homes. Fatigued infants were more distressed than alert infants by separation from their mother and by being prevented from handling an attractive toy. Fatigued infants also engaged in fewer mature regulatory behaviors and more immature regulatory behaviors during the episodes. The infants' experiences with nonparental child care also were associated with their emotional reactivity. The relevance of these findings to parents and researchers and the benefits to infants of learning to handle stress when fatigued are discussed. ©1999 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.
Bedtime resistance and night waking are common sleep problems throughout childhood, especially in the early years. These sleep problems may lead to difficulties in neurobehavioral functioning, but most research into childhood sleep problems has not emphasized the importance of the developmental context in which disruptions in neurobehavioral and daytime functioning occur. We review the development of sleep as well as executive functioning (EF) in childhood and suggest that EF may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of these common childhood sleep problems because of its prolonged course of maturation. Behavioral problems associated with common sleep problems suggest poor self-regulation in the context of sleep loss, and developing EF skills play important roles in self-regulation. A research agenda that considers a developmental approach to sleep and sleep problems in the context of childhood EF performance is outlined to promote future research in this area.
Turnbull K; Reid GJ; Morton JB. Behavioral sleep problems and their potential impact on developing executive function in children. SLEEP 2013;36(7):1077-1084.
Researchers have suggested that as children's language skill develops in early childhood, it comes to help children regulate their emotions (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010; Kopp, 1989), but the pathways by which this occurs have not been studied empirically. In a longitudinal study of 120 children from 18 to 48 months of age, associations among child language skill, observed anger expression, and regulatory strategies during a delay task were examined. Toddlers with better language skill, and whose language skill increased more over time, appeared less angry at 48 months and their anger declined more over time. Two regulatory strategies, support seeking and distraction, explained a portion of the variance in the association between language skill and anger expression after toddlerhood.
This paper develops the argument that goal disengagement forms an essential aspect of effective self-regulation. The argument derives from a consideration of processes inherent in the life-span development of the individual, as well as processes inherent in the moment-to-moment regulation of action. Evidence is reviewed to support the idea that goal disengagement can be beneficial to psychological well-being. In addition, the article addresses the nature of disengagement. It is argued that disengagement requires a person to withdraw not only effort but also commitment from unattainable goals, and is most adaptive if it leads to pursuing new meaningful goals. The paper also discusses the manner in which various aspects of the self might support or hinder the disengagement process. The paper closes by addressing the break point between goal engagement and disengagement and suggesting several directions for future research.
Theoretical models suggest a positive relationship between sleep quality and individuals' ability to regulate emotion. However, few studies have empirically tested this hypothesised link using standardised laboratory measures of emotion-regulation ability. The present research examined the relationship between sleep quality and the ability to implement a type of emotion regulation that has particularly important implications for psychological health: cognitive reappraisal (cognitively reframing an emotional event so as to dampen its impact). To do so, 156 participants (86 male) reported on their past week's sleep quality. Their ability to implement cognitive reappraisal (CRA) was then measured with a standardised laboratory challenge. Participants with poorer self-reported sleep quality exhibited lower CRA, even after controlling for fourteen potential key confounds (e.g., age, negative affect, mood disorder symptoms, stress). This finding is consistent with the idea that poorer sleep quality impairs individuals' ability to engage in the crucial task of regulating negative emotions.
This paper reports on observational approaches developed within a UK study to the identification and assessment of metacognition
and self-regulation in young children in the 3–5year age range. It is argued that the development of observational tools,
although containing methodological difficulties, allows us to make more valid assessments of children’s metacognitive and
self-regulatory abilities in this age group. The analysis of 582 metacognitive or self-regulatory videotaped ‘events’ is described,
including the development of a coding framework identifying verbal and non-verbal indicators. The construction of an observational
instrument, the Children’s Independent Learning Development (CHILD 3–5) checklist, is also reported together with evidence
of the reliability with which it can be used by classroom teachers and early indications of its external validity as a measure
of metacognition and self-regulation in young children. Given the educational significance of children’s development of metacognitive
and self-regulatory skills, it is argued that the development of such an instrument is potentially highly beneficial. The
establishment of the metacognitive and self-regulatory capabilities of young children by means of the kinds of observational
tools developed within this study also has clear and significant implications for models and theories of metacognition and
self-regulation. The paper concludes with a discussion of these implications.
This article reviews research on the effects of sleep quality on cognitive outcomes in infancy, childhood, and adolescence; the effects of sleep restriction on cognitive measures in children; and experimental studies investigating differences in memory consolidation in sleep and wake states after learning in infant, child, and adolescent populations. The studies point to an essential role for sleep in cognitive development, with many similarities between the effects of sleep on learning in children and adults and some surprising differences. Achieving adequate sleep may be particularly important to higher level cognitive functioning in early childhood.
Early childhood is a period of dramatic change in sleep and emotion processing, as well as a time when disturbance in both domains are first detected. Although sleep is recognized as central in emotion processing and psychopathology, the great majority of experimental data have been collected in adults. We examined the effects of acute sleep restriction (nap deprivation) on toddlers' emotion expression. Ten healthy children (seven females; 30-36 months old) followed a strict sleep schedule (≥12.5 h time in bed per 24-h) for 5 days, before each of two randomly assigned afternoon emotion assessments following Nap and No-Nap conditions (resulting in an 11-day protocol). Children viewed emotion-eliciting pictures (five positive, three neutral, three negative) and completed puzzles (one solvable, one unsolvable). Children's faces were video-recorded, and emotion displays were coded. When sleep restricted, children displayed less confusion in response to neutral pictures, more negativity to neutral and negative pictures, and less positivity to positive pictures. Sleep restriction also resulted in a 34% reduction in positive emotion responses (solvable puzzle), as well as a 31% increase in negative emotion responses and a 39% decrease in confused responses (unsolvable puzzle). These findings suggest sleep is a key factor in how young children respond to their world. When sleep restricted, toddlers are neither able to take full advantage of positive experiences nor are they as adaptive in challenging contexts. If insufficient sleep consistently 'taxes' young children's emotion responses, they may not manage emotion regulation challenges effectively, potentially placing them at risk for future emotional/behavioral problems.
Self-regulatory failure is a core feature of many social and mental health problems. Self-regulation can be undermined by failures to transcend overwhelming temptations, negative moods and resource depletion, and when minor lapses in self-control snowball into self-regulatory collapse. Cognitive neuroscience research suggests that successful self-regulation is dependent on top-down control from the prefrontal cortex over subcortical regions involved in reward and emotion. We highlight recent neuroimaging research on self-regulatory failure, the findings of which support a balance model of self-regulation whereby self-regulatory failure occurs whenever the balance is tipped in favor of subcortical areas, either due to particularly strong impulses or when prefrontal function itself is impaired. Such a model is consistent with recent findings in the cognitive neuroscience of addictive behavior, emotion regulation and decision-making.
The aim of this report was to investigate the prospective links between infant sleep regulation and subsequent executive functioning (EF). The authors assessed sleep regulation through a parent sleep diary when children were 12 and 18 months old (N = 60). Child EF was assessed at 18 and 26 months of age. Higher proportions of total sleep occurring at night time, at both 12 and 18 months, were related to better performance on executive tasks, especially those involving a strong impulse control component. Most relations held above family socioeconomic status, prior mental development and concurrent verbal ability. These findings add to previous results with school-age children in suggesting that sleep favors the development of higher order cognitive functions requiring prefrontal cortex involvement.
There is mounting evidence that sleep is important for learning, memory and the underlying neural plasticity. This article aims to review published studies that evaluate the association between sleep, its distinct stages and memory systems in healthy children and adolescents. Furthermore it intends to suggest directions for future research. A computerised search of the literature for relevant articles published between 1966 and March 2008 was performed using the keywords "sleep", "memory", "learn", "child", "adolescents", "adolescence" and "teenager". Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Published studies focused on the impact of sleep on working memory and memory consolidation. In summary, most studies support the hypothesis that sleep facilitates working memory as well as memory consolidation in children and adolescents. There is evidence that performance in abstract and complex tasks involving higher brain functions declines more strongly after sleep deprivation than the performance in simple memory tasks. Future studies are needed to better understand the impact of a variety of variables potentially modulating the interplay between sleep and memory, such as developmental stage, socioeconomic burden, circadian factors, or the level of post-learning sensory and motor activity (interference). This line of research can provide valuable input relevant to teaching, learning and public health policy.
A descriptive study of the modulation of negative emotion in the toddler period was conducted by examining expressions of negative emotion and the strategies used to reduce or change these expressions. 6 strategies were identified and evaluated in terms of their frequency of use in different situations, relations with emotional expressiveness, and cross-situational consistency. 37 2-year-olds were seen in 2 laboratory contexts (delay and separation) each with 2 variants. Emotion regulation strategies and emotional expressiveness were coded from videotapes of children's behavior in these 4 situations. Findings suggest that active engagement was most commonly used and most negatively associated with child distress. Use of strategies varied by context, and there was more cross-situational consistency in use of strategies that were more negatively or positively associated with distress within a given context than in use of particular strategies without consideration of their within-context significance.
Gestational cocaine use is associated with serious pregnancy complications having fetal and neonatal implications. However, many cocaine-abusing women deliver uneventfully at term. The purpose of this study was to assess the neurodevelopmental outcome for term or near-term infants after prenatal cocaine exposure and to determine whether that outcome would be modified by early, intensive family case management. Cocaine-exposed infants identified after delivery at an urban hospital were alternately assigned to receive case management (n = 70) or routine follow-up (n = 48). A matched, non-drug-exposed group of infants was identified for comparison (n = 41). Infants aged up to 36 months were serially evaluated in a multidisciplinary clinic with cognitive, psychomotor, and language testing. Group comparisons were performed using one-way analysis of variance. There were no statistical differences in mean cognitive, psychomotor, or language quotients between cocaine-exposed and non-drug-exposed infant groups aged up to 36 months. At 6 months of age, case-managed cocaine-exposed infants had a significantly higher mean Bayley Mental Developmental Index score than those who were routinely managed. However, no differences were present at subsequent assessments. Among cocaine-exposed infants who remained with their mothers at 36 months, verbal scores were significantly higher for case-managed compared with routine-managed infants. The negative effects of urban, low socioeconomic status may overshadow the impact of prenatal cocaine exposure on early childhood outcome for those infants born without prenatal complications.
This study examined the effects of acute sleep restriction on the day-time behavior and performance of healthy children and adolescents. 82 participants (8 to 15 years of age) completed 5 nights of baseline sleep and were randomly assigned to Optimized (10 hr.) or Restricted (4 hr.) sleep for an overnight lab visit. Behavior, performance, and sleepiness were assessed the following day. Sleep restriction was associated with shorter daytime sleep latency, increased subjective sleepiness, and increased sleepy and inattentive behaviors but was not associated with increased hyperactive-impulsive behavior or impaired performance on tests of response inhibition and sustained attention. Results are discussed in terms of current theories regarding effects of inadequate or disturbed sleep among children and adolescents.
The main purpose of the present study was to calculate percentile curves for total sleep duration per 24 hours, for nighttime and for daytime sleep duration from early infancy to late adolescence to illustrate the developmental course and age-specific variability of these variables among subjects.
A total of 493 subjects from the Zurich Longitudinal Studies were followed using structured sleep-related questionnaires at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months after birth and then at annual intervals until 16 years of age. Gaussian percentiles for ages 3 months to 16 years were calculated for total sleep duration (time in bed) and nighttime and daytime sleep duration. The mean sleep duration for ages 1 to 16 years was estimated by generalized additive models based on the loess smoother; a cohort effect also had to be included. The standard deviation (SD) was estimated from the loess smoothed absolute residuals from the mean curve. For ages 3, 6, and 9 months, an alternative approach with a simple model linear in age was used. For age 1 month, empirical percentiles were calculated.
Total sleep duration decreased from an average of 14.2 hours (SD: 1.9 hours) at 6 months of age to an average of 8.1 hours (SD: 0.8 hours) at 16 years of age. The variance showed the same declining trend: the interquartile range at 6 months after birth was 2.5 hours, whereas at 16 years of age, it was only 1.0 hours. Total sleep duration decreased across the studied cohorts (1974-1993) because of increasingly later bedtime but unchanged wake time across decades. Consolidation of nocturnal sleep occurred during the first 12 months after birth with a decreasing trend of daytime sleep. This resulted in a small increase of nighttime sleep duration by 1 year of age (mean 11.0 +/- 1.1 hours at 1 month to 11.7 +/- 1.0 hours at 1 year of age). The most prominent decline in napping habits occurred between 1.5 years of age (96.4% of all children) and 4 years of age (35.4%).
Percentile curves provide valuable information on developmental course and age-specific variability of sleep duration for the health care professional who deals with sleep problems in pediatric practice.
To present a longitudinal overview of the sleep schedules during weekdays and the weekend in a large sample of children and to examine the sleep-wake schedules in relation to nocturnal sleep duration and birth season.
Longitudinal survey design.
Data were collected by home interviews and questionnaires.
Data for sleep schedules at the ages of 4, 5, and 6 years on weekdays were obtained for 1112 children. Data for bedtimes on the weekend were available for 1094 children, and data for wake times on the weekend were available for 1083 children.
Habitual bedtimes and wake times during weekdays and the weekend were reported by the mothers at the 3 ages. Nighttime sleep duration was calculated from bedtime to wake time. Birth characteristics came from medical records.
As children grow up, we found later bedtimes on the weekend for a given bedtime on weekdays. Interestingly, most children slept less during the weekend compared with weekdays. No significant difference (P > .10 for all) was found in the seasonal distribution of births in any of the sleep-wake schedules.
Despite a lack of a strong preference for sleep timing during childhood, the displacement of bedtime toward later hours during the weekend starts early in life. More important, sleep-wake patterns are associated with sleep duration and later bedtimes on the weekend seem to shorten sleep duration in most children.
Twenty to 40% of young children are reported to have behavioral insomnias of childhood. Concerns about sleep at these ages are the most common problem expressed to pediatricians at the time of well child visits. A screening questionnaire, the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), has been used in clinical settings and in research studies to assess children ages 4 to 10 for the presence of sleep problems. A CSHQ total score has distinguished clinical populations from community samples.
The current study assesses the CSHQ in a younger age group than previously reported and in a diverse population. A total of 194 children, ages 2 to 51/2 years, were recruited into 3 diagnostic groups: 68 children with autism, 57 children with developmental delay without autism, and 69 typically developing children. All children's parents completed the CSHQ and a sleep log, and all children were studied for 7 days and nights with actigraphy. The children were divided into problem sleep and non-problem sleep groups on the basis of a parent report of a generic sleep problem at the time of entry into the study. The CSHQ responses for the problem and non-problem sleep groups were then compared.
The results suggest that the CSHQ is clinically useful for screening of sleep problems in typically developing children at these young ages as well as in children with diverse neurodevelopmental diagnoses.
The somewhat higher subscale scores than previously reported for older children appear to be consistent with more sleep problems in younger children.
Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences Self-regulation and school readiness
- J Cohen
- N Eisenberg
- C Valiente
- N D Eggum
Cohen, J. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, 1988. Eisenberg, N., Valiente, C. and Eggum, N. D. Self-regulation and school readiness. Early Educ. Dev., 2010, 21: 681–698.
Socioemotional Development in the Toddler Years: Transitions and Transformations
- C A Brownell
- C B Kopp
Brownell, C. A. and Kopp, C. B. Socioemotional Development in the
Toddler Years: Transitions and Transformations. Guilford Press,
New York, NY, 2010.
Emotion regulation in two‐year‐olds: strategies and emotional expression in four contexts
- Grolnick W. S.