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Children's sleep and cognitive functioning: race and socioeconomic status as moderators of effects

Joseph A Buckhalt1, Mona El-Sheikh, Peggy Keller

  • 1Department of Counselor Education, Counseling Psychology & School Psychology, 2084 Haley Center, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. buckhja@auburn.edu

Child Development
|March 3, 2007
PubMed

Insights

Children's sleep disruptions impact cognitive performance differently based on race and socioeconomic status (SES). Higher SES children showed better cognitive function with disrupted sleep, unlike African American children.

Area of Science:

  • Child Psychology
  • Sleep Science
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • Sleep is crucial for cognitive development in children.
  • Existing research often overlooks the interplay of race and socioeconomic status (SES) on sleep-cognition links.
  • Understanding these moderators is vital for targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how race and SES moderate the relationship between children's sleep and cognitive functioning.
  • To identify specific sleep parameters (quality, variability) and their differential impact across racial and SES groups.
  • To inform potential interventions for improving cognitive performance.

Main Methods:

  • Recruited 166 African and European American children aged 8-9 years with varying SES.
  • Assessed sleep using actigraphy, sleep diaries, and self-report.
  • Measured cognitive function via Woodcock-Johnson III tests and reaction time tasks.

Main Results:

  • Children performed similarly with optimal sleep, irrespective of race or SES.
  • After controlling for SES, African American children exhibited lower cognitive performance with sleep disruptions.
  • Higher SES children outperformed lower SES children when sleep was disrupted; performance was similar with better sleep.

Conclusions:

  • Race and SES significantly moderate the sleep-cognition relationship in children.
  • Sleep disruptions disproportionately affect cognitive performance in African American children, particularly after accounting for SES.
  • Environmental factors linked to race and SES warrant further investigation for intervention development.

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