Guner, Nesli;
Hayton, Jessica Antonia;
(2024)
Parental and Child Sleep: Children with Vision Impairment, Autistic Children, and Children with Comorbid Vision Impairment and Autism.
Brain Sciences
, 14
(5)
, Article 485. 10.3390/brainsci14050485.
Preview |
Text
brainsci-14-00485.pdf - Published Version Download (476kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Background: Parents report associations between children’s sleep disturbances and behaviors. Children with neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., Williams Syndrome and autism) are consistently reported to experience increased sleeping problems. Sleep in children with vision impairment and children with a dual diagnosis of vision impairment and autism remains understudied. Methods: Our exploratory study compared sleep profiles in 52 children (aged 4–12 years) and their parents (n = 37), across four groups: children with vision impairment (VI; n = 9), autism (n = 10), comorbid vision impairment + autism (n = 6), and typically developing children (n = 27). Childhood sleep was measured using the parental report Childhood Sleep Habits Questionnaire and sleep diaries. Children’s cognitive functioning was measured using digit span, semantic, and phonemic verbal fluency measures. Parental sleep was measured via the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Results: Clinically disordered sleep was reported in all child groups (p ≤ 0.001), particularly children with VI + autism. Age, not sleep quality/quantity, predicted cognitive task performance in TD and autistic groups, but not in VI and VI + autism groups. The child’s diagnosis affected parental sleep, particularly in children with a dual diagnosis of VI + autism. Conclusions: All participants experienced problematic sleep to varying degrees. Those most affected were children and parents in the VI + autism group, suggesting that autism may be the main driver of sleep problems in our sample.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Parental and Child Sleep: Children with Vision Impairment, Autistic Children, and Children with Comorbid Vision Impairment and Autism |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/brainsci14050485 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14050485 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/license s/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Sleep; parents; caregivers; children; autism; vision impairment; comorbid |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192226 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
