Related Experiment Videos
How well do school-aged children comply with imposed sleep schedules at home?
Gahan Fallone1, Ronald Seifer, Christine Acebo
1E. P. Bradley Hospital Sleep Research and Chronobiology Laboratory, East Providence, Rhode Island 02915, USA. Gahan_Fallone@Brown.edu
Insights
Healthy children aged 6+ can adapt to significant changes in sleep schedules, making them suitable for sleep studies. This research provides a guide for future sleep extension and restriction experiments.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Sleep Research
- Chronobiology
- Behavioral Sleep Medicine
Background:
- Understanding children's sleep patterns is crucial for development and health.
- Previous studies have faced challenges in maintaining adherence to experimental sleep schedules in children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantitatively evaluate how well healthy children comply with and succeed in experimental sleep schedules.
- To compare optimized (≥10 hours) versus restricted (6.5-8 hours) sleep conditions in a home setting.
Main Methods:
- 78 healthy children (mean age 10.2 years) followed assigned sleep schedules for 2 weeks during the school year.
- Daily self/parent-report of sleep times and continuous actigraphy were used to monitor compliance and sleep duration.
Main Results:
- Children reported significantly less time in bed during restricted sleep (3.45 hours less).
- Actigraphy confirmed reduced sleep period (2.97 hours less) and total sleep time (2.32 hours less) with restricted sleep.
- While some noncompliance and experimental failures occurred, most children demonstrated substantial sleep behavior changes between conditions.
Conclusions:
- Healthy children, even as young as 6 years, can adhere to significant sleep schedule alterations at home.
- These findings support the inclusion of children in experimental sleep studies, providing a methodological framework for future research.
Study Objectives:
To quantitatively assess compliance and experimental success with imposed sleep schedules among healthy children involved in an experimental comparison of optimized and restricted sleep.
Design:
We asked children to follow assigned sleep schedules at home that created optimized (at least 10 hours time-in-bed per night) and restricted (6.5 to 8 hours time-in-bed per night) sleep conditions across 2 weeks during the school year. Self-report or parent-report of bedtime and risetime was obtained daily and continuous actigraphy was recorded.
Setting:
Home.
Participants:
78 healthy children (41 boys, 37 girls; mean age, 10.2 years; age range, 6.5 to 12.9 years)
Interventions:
N/A.
Measurements And Results:
We used reported time-in-bed to assess noncompliance with assigned schedules. Experimental failure was assessed with actigraphically based estimates of sleep period (time from sleep onset to sleep offset) and total sleep time (minutes of scored sleep during sleep period). Reported time-in-bed averaged 3.45 hours less per night under restricted versus optimized conditions. Sleep period and total sleep time showed similar differences (2.97 and 2.32 hours less, respectively). Four children met a priori criteria for noncompliance (3 for optimized nights and 1 for restricted). Eight children met a priori criteria for experimental failure within conditions (7 for optimized nights and 1 for restricted), but most achieved a substantial difference in sleep behavior across optimized and restricted weeks.
Conclusions:
In general, healthy children as young as 6 years of age can maintain substantial changes in their usual schedules across several nights at home and should be considered for inclusion in experimental studies of sleep extension and restriction. This paper offers a methodologic "road-map" for scientists interested in pursuing this goal.