Sleep disturbances in visually impaired toddlers

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Elisa Fazzi1, Maria Zaccagnino, Sheila Gahagan

  • 1Department of Child Neurology and Psychiatry-Regional Centre of Child Neurophthalmology, IRCCS C. Mondino Institute of Neurology, Via Mondino 2, 27100 Pavia, Italy. efazzi@unipv.it

Brain & Development
|April 22, 2008
PubMed

Insights

Visually impaired children experience significant sleep disturbances, including longer times to fall asleep and more frequent, prolonged nighttime awakenings compared to their typically developing peers. These sleep challenges are prevalent regardless of associated disabilities.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Sleep Medicine
  • Developmental Ophthalmology
  • Child Neurology

Background:

  • Sleep patterns are crucial for child development.
  • Visual impairment (VI) can impact various developmental trajectories, including sleep-wake cycles.
  • Limited research exists on sleep in visually impaired children during early life.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To characterize sleep patterns in visually impaired (VI) children up to 40 months of age.
  • To compare sleep in VI children with typically developing controls.
  • To assess the influence of age, sex, and associated disabilities on VI children's sleep.

Main Methods:

  • A sleep questionnaire was administered to 154 parents of children aged 10-39 months.
  • Participants included 36 VI children without associated disabilities, 68 VI children with associated disabilities (e.g., cortical visual impairment), and 50 healthy controls.
  • Groups were balanced for age and gender; the questionnaire assessed sleep patterns and medical history.

Main Results:

  • Visually impaired children exhibited higher sleep disturbance scores than controls.
  • VI children experienced prolonged sleep onset latency and increased frequency and duration of nocturnal awakenings.
  • Sleep patterns in VI children were not significantly affected by the presence of associated disabilities.

Conclusions:

  • Visually impaired children face greater challenges with falling asleep and maintaining sleep compared to typically developing children.
  • These findings underscore the importance of assessing and managing sleep-wake cycle disturbances in the care of visually impaired children.
  • The study confirms previous research on sleep difficulties in visually impaired populations.
Abstract

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