Sleep behaviour in children with developmental co-ordination disorder

Children with developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD) experience significant difficulty in the performance of everyday movement skills in the absence of obvious neurological, sensory or intellectual impairment. They often underachieve academically and have higher rates of anxiety than their typically developing peers. Such factors are known to be associated with sleep problems in other clinical populations but the sleep patterns of children with DCD have not been examined. Information about the frequency and nature of sleep problems in DCD will aid our understanding of this developmental disorder. It may also be clinically helpful, alerting clinicians to potential difficulties so that these can be identified early and appropriate support offered.

To examine sleep behaviour of children with DCD compared with typically developing control children.

Two groups of 16 boys aged 8 to 12 years (M = 10.28, SD = 1.28) participated: (1) the DCD group had Movement ABC-2 Checklist scores below the 5th percentile; (2) an age-matched control group of typically developing children had Movement ABC-2 Checklist scores above the 15th percentile. Parents of children from both groups completed the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire.

The total sleep disturbance score was significantly higher for children with DCD compared with the control group (U= 24, P < 0.001). Subscale scores indicated particular problems with bedtime resistance (U= 77.5, P < 0.05), parasomnias (U= 28.5, P < 0.001) and daytime sleepiness (U= 58.00, P < 0.01). There were no differences between the groups for sleep onset delay, sleep duration, night wakings and sleep-disordered breathing. These preliminary results suggest that sleep patterns of children with DCD may be of clinical relevance and are worthy of further investigation.