Short sleep duration is associated with poor performance on IQ measures in healthy school-age children
Received 26 June 2009; received in revised form 31 August 2009; accepted 3 September 2009.
Abstract
Objective
To examine the associations between habitual sleep duration and intellectual functioning in healthy, well-rested, school-age children.
Methods
The study group consisted of 39 healthy children, aged 7–11years old. Nightly actigraphic sleep recordings were taken for four consecutive nights to determine habitual week-night sleep duration in the home environment. Objective measures of cognitive functioning and sleepiness were used to measure daytime functioning.
Results
Longer habitual sleep duration in healthy school-age participants was associated with better performance on measures of perceptual reasoning and overall IQ, as measured by the WISC-IV, and on reported measures of competence and academic performance. No association between sleep duration and the studied behavioral measures was found.
Conclusions
These findings support the hypothesis that sleep duration is differentially related to some components of cognitive functioning, even in the absence of evidence for sleep deprivation or attention deficits.
ABSTRACT