Parent report of children's sleep disordered breathing symptoms and limited academic progress in reading, writing, and math

Abstract

Objectives: To estimate via questionnaire within a population sample of New Zealand (NZ) children aged 6-to-10 years, the prevalence of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and those struggling academically, and to identify individual and shared risk factors (health and demographic) for parent-reported SDB symptoms and academic difficulties. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, parents/caregivers of children were recruited through schools and social media to complete an online questionnaire covering health and demographic factors, their children's SDB symptoms (Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire; PSQ) and parental ratings of academic performance based on teacher feedback relative to expected progress in the national curriculum (well below/below/at/above) in reading, writing, and math. Results: A total of 1205 children (53% male) aged (mean) eight years two months were included, comprising 79.4% NZ European/other and 15.0% Māori. The survey-weighted prevalence of SDB (based on the PSQ) was 17.5%. This was higher amongst those with academic difficulties rated ‘below/well below’ expected progress for reading, writing and math (estimated at 24.0%, 31.0% and 27.5% respectively), with increased odds (adjusted odds ratios) for poor progress of 1.9 (95% CI: 1.2, 3.0), 1.8 (95% CI: 1.2, 2.7) and 2.4 (95% CI: 1.6, 3.7) respectively. There were no shared risk factors common to both SDB and academic difficulties identified from multivariate analyses. Conclusions: The findings suggest that children with parent-reported SDB symptoms may be at high risk for poor progress in reading, writing, and math. Future research could examine whether treatment of SDB reduces barriers to learning and offsets educational risk.