Research on sleep problems and psychological function in children with Down syndrome: Implications for clinical practice and everyday care

Abstract

Examined the sleep problems of 91 school-aged children with Down syndrome (DS), 71 children with learning disabilities, 54 siblings of the DS group, and 71 normal control children. Also, the associations between these problems and learning, daytime behavioral disturbances (DBDs), and maternal stress were studied. Childhood sleep problems, especially those of reluctance or inability to go to sleep or repeated night time wakings, were very common in both disabled groups, though somewhat less so in DS Ss. However, compared with the other groups, DS Ss were characterized by higher rates of parental reports of features which raised the possibility that their children's breathing patterns were disturbed during sleep. High rates of DBDs were also seen in Ss with learning disabilities, especially those with a learning disability other than DS. The same pattern was seen regarding maternal stress, which was often very high. Results suggest that children with DS are generally less affected by DBDs and their mothers less stressed when compared with children with other forms of learning disability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)