Children With Sleep Disorders Have High Risk of Special Education Needs by age 8 years

Link to article: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/08/28/peds.2012-0392.full.pdf+html


Article Review:
Karen Bonuck, PhD, from the Department of Family Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, and her colleagues recently published a study reporting on data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in southwestern England. Since 1991, this institution has tracking the development over 14,000 children from birth through age 8 years. This specific study focuses on the relationship between sleep disorders and special education needs (SEN) at age 8 years. SEN categories include communication disorders, learning disabilities and behavioral and emotional difficulties.
Parents enrolled in this study responded to questionnaires when their children completed the ages of 6, 18, 42 and 57 months. These surveys included questions about snoring, mouth breathing and apnea. In addition, the surveys included questions on behaviors around sleep, such as refusal to go to bed, patterns of awakening, and inability to sleep through the night.


After controlling for 16 confounding variables, this study demonstrated a 7% increased risk for special education needs for each year a behavioral sleep disorder was reported. Overall, children with sleep disordered breathing had a 40 to 60% increased need for SEN, depending on the severity of their sleep disordered breathing.