Daytime physical activity and sleep in pre-schoolers with developmental disorders

This study aims to investigate the association between daytime physical activity (PA) and sleep in pre-schoolers with or without autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).

Thirty-one pre-school children with ASD and 16 age-matched controls were recruited. Sleep and PA patterns were measured with an Actiwatch for 7 days. After average PA values were calculated for three periods (morning, afternoon and evening) of each day for each child, the days with maximum (active) and minimum (inactive) PA values for these three periods were determined. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare sleep following active mornings, afternoons and evenings with that following inactive time periods.

In control children, sleep onset time following active mornings/afternoons did not differ from that following inactive mornings/afternoons. In contrast, sleep onset following the most inactive morning (median sleep onset time: 9:57 pm) and the most inactive afternoon (median sleep onset time: 10:24 pm) began significantly later than that following the most active mornings (median sleep onset time: 9:21 pm) and the most active afternoons (median sleep onset time: 9:39 pm) in children with ASD. The percentage of sleep for control children following active mornings was significantly higher (median: 93.2%) than that following inactive ones (median: 91.7%). Significant associations were not found between evening PA and sleep in either ASD or control children.

A high level of morning and afternoon PA can advance the sleep phase in children with ASD.