Sleep Education and Research Laboratory, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK.
Psychology Program, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
Res Dev Disabil. 2022 Sep;128:104271. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104271. Epub 2022 Jun 24.
There is a growing body of research studying the impact sleep has on attention among typically developing (TD) children, but research is lacking among autistic children.
The present study aimed to explore, for the first time, differences in (1) attention, (2) sleep parameters among primary school-aged Singaporean autistic children (N = 26) and Singaporean TD children (N = 20), and with UK autistic (N = 11) and UK TD children (N = 16), and (3) the impact of sleep on attention.
Actigraphy was used to objectively assess sleep, and a Continuous Performance Task was used to measure attentional domains.
There were inconclusive findings indicating that autistic children had poorer sustained attention than TD children. Although autistic children did not display more sleep difficulties than TD children, they showed shorter actual sleep duration (Singapore ASD = 7:00 h, UK ASD = 7:35 h, p < .01) and longer sleep latency (Singapore ASD = 30:15 min, UK ASD = 60:00 min, p < .01) than clinical recommendations. Sleep difficulties were also present among Singaporean and UK TD children. Both TD groups had less actual sleep duration than recommended (Singapore TD = 6:32 h, UK TD = 8:07 h). Singaporean TD children had sleep efficiency below recommended criterion (78.15%). Sleep impacted attention across all groups, but effects were different for autistic and TD groups.
The study highlighted the importance for practitioners and carers to adopt a child-centred approach to assessing sleep and attentional difficulties, especially among autistic children due to the high variability in performance within the group. The impact of cultural and school-setting differences on sleep was also raised.
越来越多的研究关注睡眠对典型发展（TD）儿童注意力的影响，但自闭症儿童的相关研究却很缺乏。
本研究首次旨在探索（1）新加坡自闭症儿童（N=26）和新加坡 TD 儿童（N=20）、英国自闭症儿童（N=11）和英国 TD 儿童（N=16）在注意力方面的差异，（2）睡眠参数的差异，以及（3）睡眠对注意力的影响。
使用活动记录仪客观评估睡眠，使用连续性能任务测量注意力领域。
研究结果尚无定论，表明自闭症儿童的持续性注意力不如 TD 儿童。尽管自闭症儿童的睡眠困难并不比 TD 儿童多，但他们的实际睡眠时间更短（新加坡 ASD=7:00 小时，英国 ASD=7:35 小时，p<.01），入睡潜伏期更长（新加坡 ASD=30:15 分钟，英国 ASD=60:00 分钟，p<.01），不符合临床建议。新加坡和英国 TD 儿童也存在睡眠困难。两个 TD 组的实际睡眠时间都比建议的少（新加坡 TD=6:32 小时，英国 TD=8:07 小时）。新加坡 TD 儿童的睡眠效率低于推荐标准（78.15%）。睡眠对所有组的注意力都有影响，但自闭症组和 TD 组的影响不同。
本研究强调了从业者和照顾者采用以儿童为中心的方法评估睡眠和注意力困难的重要性，尤其是对于自闭症儿童，因为该组的表现存在很大的差异。还提出了文化和学校环境差异对睡眠的影响。
