Understanding the downstream effects of early sleep for education and mental health

了解早期睡眠对教育和心理健康的下游影响

• 批准号: ES/W005972/1
• 负责人: Lisa Henderson
• 金额: $ 30.67万
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW005972%2F1
• 关键词: Understanding; downstream; effects; early; sleep

Around 25% of children under three have sleep problems, such as difficulties getting to sleep and frequent night waking. Poor sleep during the early years has immediate consequences for behaviour and mood, as well as having a deleterious effect on parent health and family functioning; however, we have a relatively poorer understanding of how persistent early sleep difficulties are and whether they influence future outcomes such as school grades and mental health. Identifying whether and which early sleep difficulties impose a risk to later academic and mental health outcomes is of societal importance: Such research has the potential to reveal early risk factors for later academic problems and mental ill health that can be mitigated through raising awareness of the importance of sleep during this critical period and identifying routes to support. It would also further emphasize the need to provide guidance on sleep to early years providers, which is currently lacking. There is some evidence that sleep difficulties can persist across development. There is also evidence that sleep quality and quantity in childhood predicts mental health and cognitive abilities in later childhood. However, methodological limitations prevent us from using these findings to inform policy on early sleep. For example, a lack of long-term longitudinal studies means that little is known about the effects of early sleep across childhood and adolescence. We have little understanding of the particular aspects of early sleep that persist over development and predict later sleep difficulties and real-world outcomes, such as diagnoses of mental illnesses and school grades. It is also unclear who is at heightened risk of poor sleep: previous research suggests that sleep is a particularly important driver of cognitive development in children from low socio-economic status backgrounds, but we do not know whether this is the case in the early years. Finally, although cognition and mental health are closely related, research investigating the effects of early sleep on these outcomes has done so in isolation. A much-needed integrative approach would allow us to examine the interactions between these variables, working to considerably advance our understanding of how early sleep affects later outcomes.The current project will address these important gaps utilising existing large-scale longitudinal datasets. Primarily, we will use the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which follows the lives of around 14,000 individuals born in 1991-1992. The dataset is rich, containing data from birth through to adolescence. In addition, Born in Bradford, which is following the lives of 13,500 children born in 2007-2010, will allow us to examine relationships between early sleep and educationally relevant outcome measures that are still in use. With these datasets we will address a number of key questions, such as do early sleep characteristics that emerge in the first three years of life predict sleep characteristics in later childhood and adolescence? Do early sleep characteristics predict later mental health, vocabulary, and educational outcomes? Does the extent to which early sleep characteristics predict later outcomes differ depending on socioeconomic status? What factors drive the relationship between early sleep and later educational outcomes (i.e., are there pathways from early sleep to vocabulary and emotional development that subsequently shape academic outcomes)?As well as advancing knowledge of the role of sleep in development, this research has a number of societal implications. To ensure we maximise the impact, a crucial element will be to collaborate with The Sleep Charity and the Centre for Applied Education Research to influence national policy concerning early childhood sleep, share our findings with key stakeholders and create free and accessible webinar training on early sleep.

大约25%的三岁以下儿童有睡眠问题，比如难以入睡和夜间频繁醒来。早年睡眠不足会对行为和情绪产生直接影响，并对父母的健康和家庭功能产生有害影响；然而，我们对早期睡眠困难的持续程度以及它们是否会影响未来的结果（如学习成绩和心理健康）的理解相对较差。确定早期睡眠困难是否以及哪些会对后来的学业和心理健康结果造成风险，具有重要的社会意义：此类研究有可能揭示后来的学业问题和精神疾病的早期风险因素，这些因素可以通过在这一关键时期提高对睡眠重要性的认识并确定支持途径来减轻。它还将进一步强调需要向幼儿护理人员提供有关睡眠的指导，这是目前所缺乏的。有证据表明，睡眠困难会在整个发育过程中持续存在。还有证据表明，儿童时期睡眠的质量和数量预示着儿童后期的心理健康和认知能力。然而，方法上的限制使我们无法使用这些发现来为早期睡眠政策提供信息。例如，缺乏长期的纵向研究意味着人们对童年和青春期早睡的影响知之甚少。我们对早期睡眠的某些方面知之甚少，这些方面在发育过程中持续存在，并预测后来的睡眠困难和现实世界的结果，比如精神疾病的诊断和学习成绩。目前还不清楚哪些人睡眠质量差的风险更高：之前的研究表明，对于社会经济地位低的儿童来说，睡眠是认知发展的一个特别重要的驱动力，但我们不知道在早期是否如此。最后，尽管认知和心理健康密切相关，但调查早睡对这些结果影响的研究是孤立进行的。一种急需的综合方法将使我们能够检查这些变量之间的相互作用，从而大大提高我们对早睡如何影响后来结果的理解。目前的项目将利用现有的大规模纵向数据集解决这些重要的差距。首先，我们将使用雅芳父母和孩子的纵向研究，该研究跟踪了大约14000名1991-1992年出生的人的生活。数据集很丰富，包含了从出生到青春期的数据。此外，《出生在布拉德福德》（Born In Bradford）追踪了13500名2007-2010年出生的儿童的生活，这将使我们能够研究早睡与仍在使用的教育相关结果之间的关系。通过这些数据集，我们将解决一些关键问题，例如，生命前三年出现的早期睡眠特征是否可以预测儿童后期和青春期的睡眠特征？早睡的特点能预测以后的心理健康、词汇量和教育成果吗？早期睡眠特征对日后结果的预测程度是否因社会经济地位的不同而不同？什么因素推动了早睡和后来的教育成果之间的关系（即，是否存在从早睡到词汇和情感发展的途径，这些途径随后会影响学术成果）？除了进一步了解睡眠在发育中的作用外，这项研究还具有许多社会意义。为了确保我们最大限度地发挥影响，一个关键因素将是与睡眠慈善机构和应用教育研究中心合作，影响有关儿童早期睡眠的国家政策，与主要利益相关者分享我们的发现，并创建免费和可访问的早期睡眠网络研讨会培训。