Studies show that children who suffer from sleep disturbance or habitual short sleep duration are less likely to succeed academically compared to those who enjoy a good night’s sleep.
Children who have trouble sleeping
tend to do worse in school than their peers who get a good night’s sleep, suggests a brazilian study.
Researchers in Brazil looked at children age 7 to 10 who
attended Sao Paulo public schools. They found kids with symptoms of sleep
disorders or sleep breathing disorders earned lower grades than those without
problems sleeping, on average.
13% of children with difficulty sleeping had
failing grades in Portuguese, compared to 9% of those without sleep
problems. Likewise, 25% of kids with disrupted sleep had failing math
grades, versus 8% of children without trouble sleeping.
“Because (symptoms of sleep disorders) and particularly (sleep
breathing disorders) are highly prevalent, we suggest that all health
professionals and educators become aware of this striking effect and take
appropriate actions to solve or mitigate what could very well constitute a
public health issue,” researchers led by Luciane Bizari Coin de Carvalho from
the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo wrote.
Experts estimate that roughly one-quarter of U.S. children have
disrupted sleep at some point during childhood. Erratic bedtime hours and
anxiety, either at school or at home, may contribute.
Other children may have unrecognized sleep disorders, such as
sleep walking, nightmares or insomnia, or sleep breathing disorders, like sleep
apnea. Some medications, including those for asthma or
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, can affect sleep. The underlying
medical problems may also cause sleep disturbances.
Poor sleep among children has been tied to obesity, which over
the long term increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes. And poor school
performance has been linked to early dropout rates - so the new findings may
have implications beyond getting a good night’s sleep, researchers said.
From 1999 to 2001, the researchers distributed 5,400
questionnaires asking about symptoms of sleep disorders and sleep breathing
disorders to children in Sao Paulo public schools.
Then they looked at the Portuguese and Math grades of 2,384
children whose parents filled out and returned the questionnaire.
The study team found about 31 percent of the children had
symptoms of sleep disorders - such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, or
feeling sleepy all the time - and close to 27 percent had sleep breathing
disorders. Those students’ grades were significantly lower than the grades of
kids without sleep disorder symptoms.
In Brazil, grades are based on a scale of 0 to 10, with 5
considered passing. Average Portuguese grades were 6.6 for kids with sleep
problems, compared to 7.1 among those with no sleeping trouble.
Likewise, children with symptoms of sleep disorders or sleep
breathing disorders earned an average grade of 6.3 in Math, compared to 7.1 for
other children, according to findings published in the journal Sleep Medicine.
Dr. Carl Bazil, a neurologist and director of the division of
epilepsy and sleep at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center
in New York City noted that this study fills a research void.
“There’s growing information, mainly in adults, that you need
good quality sleep to process and learn new information,” Bazil told Reuters
Health.
“It stands to reason that, if anything, sleep would be more important in children, but there’s very little information in children about sleep disturbance and learning.”
Research has shown that sleep deprivation might affect certain
parts of the brain, especially the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes control
executive function, which is the ability to make decisions, form memories, plan
for the future and inhibit socially undesirable behavior - like fighting with a
classmate.
However, the study can’t say definitively that sleep
problems were to blame for poor grades, researchers said.
“This study doesn’t prove that a sleep disturbance causes
decreased academic performance,” Bazil said, “but it shows an association.
Basically every category of sleep disturbance the authors looked at correlated
with decreased academic performance.”
The researchers relied on parents’ reports of their children’s
sleep, rather than bringing kids into a sleep lab overnight, for example.
The study is “far from perfect,” Bazil said. But, “It’s a first
step in emphasizing that sleep in children is something that’s important, not
only to prevent them from being sleepy but to make sure that they learn. I
think this study will help raise awareness that sleep is particularly important
in children.”
We have some ways to make your child's bedtime easier.
We have some ways to make your child's bedtime easier.
Source: bit.ly/19ITDb4 Sleep Medicine, online July 8,
2013.
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