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How does information about sleeping arrangements contribute to nurse practitioners' assessment of development?
1Penn State Shenango, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Sharon, Pennsylvania, USA. wlm6@psu.edu
Insights
Nurse practitioners (NPs) use children's sleeping arrangements to assess toddler development. Shared sleeping was seen as a risk for boys' social development, but potentially beneficial for girls' social development.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Nursing
- Child Development
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Assessing developmental progress is a key task for Family and Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NPs).
- Information on children's sleeping arrangements is used by NPs, but existing literature is inconclusive.
- Sleeping arrangements have been linked to child development, yet research findings are often contradictory.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how information on children's sleeping arrangements influences NPs' assessments of toddler developmental progress.
- To explore the impact of solitary versus shared sleeping arrangements on NPs' developmental ratings.
Main Methods:
- Review of selected research articles on sleeping arrangements and child development.
- Survey of Nurse Practitioners' (NPs) assessments of toddler development in relation to sleeping arrangements.
Main Results:
- Sleeping arrangements influenced NPs' ratings of toddlers' social development and autonomy, but not language skills.
- Shared sleeping arrangements for boys were perceived by NPs as a risk factor for social development and autonomy.
- Shared sleeping arrangements for girls did not appear to be a risk factor, with some evidence suggesting a positive impact on social development.
Conclusions:
- Current research lacks definitive conclusions on the link between sleeping arrangements and child development.
- NPs' perceptions of sleeping arrangements vary by child's gender, impacting developmental assessments.
- Findings can inform NPs in developing strategies for developmental assessments considering sleep arrangement information.
Purpose:
To explore how information about children's sleeping arrangements contributes to nurse practitioners' (NPs) assessment of children's developmental progress at toddlerhood.
Data Sources:
Selected research articles and a survey of NPs' assessments of development for toddlers engaged in solitary and shared sleeping arrangements.
Conclusions:
Research does not provide definitive information regarding the connection between children's engagement in different sleeping arrangements and children's development. In this study, information about how sleeping arrangements played a role in NPs' ratings of toddlers' current and predicted social development and autonomy, but not toddlers' language skills, is presented. NPs' ratings of the development of boys who engaged in shared sleeping arrangements suggested that NPs' viewed this sleeping arrangement as a risk factor for both social development and autonomy. Shared sleeping arrangements for girls were not identified as a risk factor, with some analyses suggesting that shared sleep may have a positive impact on girls' social development.
Implications For Practice:
Assessing children's developmental progress is one task completed by Family and Pediatric NPs. NPs gather information across many sources in making these developmental assessments. Type of sleeping arrangement can be one of these sources as it has been connected to children's developmental progress. However, information available in the literature is inconclusive and often contradictory in regard to how sleeping arrangements impact development. To help clarify how NPs currently use information concerning sleeping arrangements to assess developmental progress, this report describes how sleeping arrangements influenced ratings of 18-month-old toddlers' current and later predicted levels of development. This information can help NPs develop strategies for assessing development in light of information regarding sleep arrangements.
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