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Nighttime Sleep Leads To Better Skills In Infants
Researchers at the University of Montreal and the University of Minnesota say that children aged 1 to 1-1/2 years, do much better than those who don’t sleep much at night.
The study, of 60 Canadian children at ages 1, 1-1/2, and 2, looked at the effects of infants’ sleep on executive functioning. Among children, executive functioning includes the ability to control impulses, remember things, and show mental flexibility. Executive functioning develops rapidly between ages 1 and 6, but little is known about why certain children are better than others at acquiring these skills.
“We found that infants’ sleep is associated with cognitive functions that depend on brain structures that develop rapidly in the first two years of life,” explains Annie Bernier, professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, who led the study. “This may imply that good nighttime sleep in infancy sets in motion a cascade of neural effects that has implications for later executive skills.”
When the infants were 1 year old and 1-1/2 years old, their mothers filled out three-day sleep diaries that included hour-by-hour patterns, daytime naps, and nighttime wakings. When the children were 1-1/2 and 2, the researchers measured how the children did on the skills involved with executive functioning.
Children who got most of their sleep during the night did better on the tasks, especially those involving impulse control. The link between sleep and the skills remained, even after the researchers took into consideration such factors as parents’ education and income and the children’s general cognitive skills. The number of times infants woke at night and the total time spent sleeping were not found to relate to the infants’ executive functioning skills.
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More News on: Sleep Problems in Children, Sleep Disorder : Restless Legs Syndrome, Sleep Disorder: Sleepwalking, Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, Circadian Rhythm and Sleep Disorders, REM Behavior Disorder, Sleep Disturbances In Women, Development Milestone, Sleep, Insomnia
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