Elsevier

Sleep Medicine Clinics

Volume 2, Issue 3, September 2007, Pages 513-520
Sleep Medicine Clinics

Consequences of Sleep Loss or Sleep Disruption in Children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsmc.2007.05.012Get rights and content

There are well-established consequences of sleep loss and sleep disruption in children. These consequences include daytime sleepiness and fatigue, reduced alertness, and compromised performance in specific neurobehavioral domains. Most of the well-established consequences have been supported by experimental studies using sleep restriction or similar manipulations for demonstrating these causal effects. Many other studies provided correlative data on the associations between sleep problems and insufficient sleep and compromised neurobehavioral functioning or other behavioral characteristics including mood and emotion regulation. These associations should be considered cautiously because of multiple potential causal links between sleep and other behavioral systems.

Section snippets

Daytime sleepiness

Undoubtedly, the most common consequence of insufficient or disrupted sleep is daytime sleepiness and reduced alertness [16]. The definition of daytime sleepiness is problematic and various objective and subjective measures do not necessarily converge [17]. The most common methods to assess sleepiness are the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) [18] and subjective reports [17].

Experimental studies on sleep deprivation or sleep restriction in children have indicated that increased daytime

Neurobehavioral functioning, learning, and academic performance

For brevity, the term NBF is used to refer to all cognitive domains. There is a rapidly growing literature on the effects of sleep problems and insufficient sleep on NBF. Most of this literature is correlative in nature, particularly the literature on sleep disruptions, demonstrating associations between sleep problems and insufficient sleep and compromised NBF. The consequences of sleep loss or insufficient sleep have been demonstrated, however, in a small number of experimental studies on the

Behavior, temperament, and mood

The effects of sleep loss and sleep disruptions on temperament, mood, and manifested behavior (as opposed to tested NBF) have rarely been studied with experimental designs. Most of the literature in this area is based on correlative studies with only a few exceptions.

Summary

The literature on the consequences of sleep loss and sleep disruptions in children is significantly lagging behind the literature on adults. The number of experimental studies on sleep deprivation or sleep restriction in children is very small and they mostly cover the area of NBF or cognitive performance. The findings of these studies, however, are generally in line with those obtained in adults. There is converging evidence that daytime sleepiness and fatigue are a direct and consistent

References (90)

  • A.M. Meijer et al.

    The joint contribution of sleep, intelligence and motivation to school performance

    Pers Individ Dif

    (2004)
  • O. Bruni et al.

    Sleep disturbances and teacher ratings of school achievement and temperament in children

    Sleep Med

    (2006)
  • P. Corkum et al.

    Sleep disturbances in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (1998)
  • A. Sadeh et al.

    Sleep in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analysis of polysomnographic studies

    Sleep Med Rev

    (2006)
  • M. Cohen-Zion et al.

    Sleep in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a review of naturalistic and stimulant intervention studies

    Sleep Med Rev

    (2004)
  • A.M. Gregory et al.

    Etiologies of associations between childhood sleep and behavioral problems in a large twin sample

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (2004)
  • D.N. Morrison et al.

    Sleep problems in adolescence

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (1992)
  • S. Kataria et al.

    Persistence of sleep disturbances in preschool children

    J Pediatr

    (1987)
  • K. Minde et al.

    Sleep problems in toddlers: effects of treatment on their daytime behavior

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (1994)
  • W.B. Carey

    Night waking and temperament in infancy

    J Pediatr

    (1974)
  • E.O. Johnson et al.

    Trouble sleeping and anxiety/depression in childhood

    Psychiatry Res

    (2000)
  • A.M. Gregory et al.

    Sleep problems in childhood: a longitudinal study of developmental change and association with behavioral problems

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (2002)
  • B.H. King et al.

    Therapeutic sleep deprivation for depression in children

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (1987)
  • M.W. Naylor et al.

    Sleep deprivation in depressed adolescents and psychiatric controls

    J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

    (1993)
  • A. Wirz-Justice et al.

    Sleep deprivation in depression: what do we know, where do we go?

    Biol Psychiatry

    (1999)
  • R.E. Dahl et al.

    Pathways to adolescent health: sleep regulation and behavior

    J Adolesc Health

    (2002)
  • A. Sadeh

    Stress, trauma, and sleep in children

    Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am

    (1996)
  • H. Taras et al.

    Sleep and student performance at school

    J Sch Health

    (2005)
  • R. Stickgold et al.

    Sleep, learning, and dreams: off-line memory reprocessing

    Science

    (2001)
  • M. Mirmiran et al.

    The importance of REM-sleep for brain maturation

    J Sleep Res

    (1993)
  • P. Peigneux et al.

    Sleeping brain, learning brain: the role of sleep for memory systems

    Neuroreport

    (2001)
  • M.G. Frank et al.

    The role of sleep in memory consolidation and brain plasticity: dream or reality?

    Neuroscientist

    (2006)
  • R.E. Dahl

    The regulation of sleep and arousal: development and psychopathology

    Dev Psychopathol

    (1996)
  • J.A. Horne

    Human sleep, sleep loss and behaviour: implications for the prefrontal cortex and psychiatric disorder

    Br J Psychiatry

    (1993)
  • Y. Harrison et al.

    Prefrontal neuropsychological effects of sleep deprivation in young adults: a model for healthy aging?

    Sleep

    (2000)
  • Y. Harrison et al.

    The impact of sleep deprivation on decision making: a review

    J Exp Psychol Appl

    (2000)
  • M.A. Carskadon et al.

    Guidelines for the multiple sleep latency test (MSLT): a standard measure of sleepiness

    Sleep

    (1986)
  • M.A. Carskadon et al.

    Sleep loss in young adolescents

    Sleep

    (1981)
  • M.A. Carskadon et al.

    Acute restriction of nocturnal sleep in children

    Percept Mot Skills

    (1981)
  • A.C. Randazzo et al.

    Cognitive function following acute sleep restriction in children ages 10-14

    Sleep

    (1998)
  • G. Fallone et al.

    Effects of acute sleep restriction on behavior, sustained attention, and response inhibition in children

    Percept Mot Skills

    (2001)
  • A. Sadeh et al.

    The effects of sleep restriction and extension on school-age children: what a difference an hour makes

    Child Dev

    (2003)
  • G. Fallone et al.

    Experimental restriction of sleep opportunity in children: effects on teacher ratings

    Sleep

    (2005)
  • A. Sadeh et al.

    Sleep patterns and sleep disruptions in school-age children

    Dev Psychol

    (2000)
  • S.F. Gau et al.

    Sleep problems of junior high school students in Taipei

    Sleep

    (1995)
  • Cited by (157)

    • Trauma Exposure in Migrant Children: Impact on Sleep and Acute Treatment Interventions

      2024, Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text