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Signaled night awakening and its association with social information processing and socio-emotional development

Tiina E Mäkelä1, Anneli Kylliäinen1, Outi Saarenpää-Heikkilä2,3

  • 1Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.

Sleep
|July 16, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Infants frequently waking at night show differences in social development. Night awakenings in the first two years are linked to altered social information processing and socio-emotional behaviors in children.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Pediatric Sleep Medicine

Background:

  • Night awakening is common in infancy and early childhood.
  • The impact of night awakenings on children's social development requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine longitudinal associations between signaled night awakening, social information processing, and socio-emotional development in infants.
  • To compare social development in infants with frequent night awakenings versus those with minimal awakenings.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal study within the CHILD-SLEEP birth cohort.
  • Two groups: waking (≥3 awakenings) and non-waking (≤1 awakening) at 8 months.
  • Social information processing assessed via attention to emotional faces at 8 and 24 months; socio-emotional behavior assessed using the BITSEA questionnaire at 24 months.

Main Results:

  • Infants with frequent night awakenings exhibited an attentional bias towards fearful faces compared to happy faces.
  • The waking group showed more dysregulation problems and lower social competence at 24 months.
  • No significant differences in internalizing or externalizing problems were observed between groups.

Conclusions:

  • Signaled night awakening during the first two years of life is associated with distinct patterns of social information processing.
  • Night awakenings correlate with socio-emotional development, specifically impacting social competence and emotional regulation.
Abstract

Keywords:
fragmented sleepinfancynight awakeningsocial cognitionsocial information processingsocio-emotional development

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