The Benefit of Naps on Cognitive, Emotional and Motor Learning in Preschoolers

午睡对学龄前儿童认知、情感和运动学习的好处

• 批准号: 8304637
• 负责人: Rebecca M C Spencer
• 金额: $ 46.26万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-01 至 2017-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8304637
• 关键词: Accounting; Adult; Age; Brain; Child; Child Development; Childhood; Circadian Rhythms; Cognitive; Data; Development; Developmental Delay Disorders; Dimensions; Disadvantaged; Education; Educational Curriculum; Educational process of instructing; Emotional; Goals; Guidelines; Health Benefit; Immediate Recalls; Individual Differences; Intervention; Knowledge; Learning; Length; Longevity; Memory; Mental Health; Modeling; Moods; Motor; Napping; Nursery Schools; Outcome; Pattern; Performance; Personal Satisfaction; Policies; Population; Preparation; Preschool Child; Process; Psychopathology; Readiness; Relative (related person); Research; Research Personnel; Rest; Risk; Schedule; Schools; Science; Sleep; Sleep Stages; Targeted Research; Task Performances; Training; Underserved Population; Weaning; Work; awake; base; cognitive function; cost; design; developmental disease; improved; innovation; memory process; memory recall; motor learning; novel; parental influence; physical conditioning; pressure; procedural memory; relating to nervous system; young adult

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sleep protects and enhances memory in young adults. Specifically, performance changes on a range of tasks are greater following an interval with sleep relative to changes over an interval spent awake. Sleep also enhances encoding of subsequent memories. In young adults, a mid-day nap is sufficient for gaining these performance benefits. Unlike adults, mid-day naps are routine for young children. The age at which children wean from this biphasic sleep pattern is often influenced by parent and school schedules. Whether naps confer a particular benefit to learning and performance of young children is unknown. The research objective of this proposal is to characterize the function of sleep on learning and memory in young children (3-5 yrs) using naps as a model. By probing recall prior to and following mid-day nap or wake intervals, the overarching hypothesis is that mid-day naps benefit existing memories and subsequent learning. In the preschool classroom, children will be trained on a declarative, emotional, or procedural learning task before (Specific Aim 1) or after (Specific Aim 2) a mid-day nap opportunity. In two conditions, children will either be nap-promoted or wake-promoted during this interval. Subsequently, performance will be reassessed that day as well as the following day. The specific hypotheses examined are: a) mid-day naps benefit performance on most tasks learned prior to sleep; b) performance on tasks learned after sleep is superior to performance for tasks learned after wake, and; c) the benefit of sleep remains even after overnight sleep, when differences in sleep pressure and mood are equated. This work is innovative in that it presents a novel application of an accepted theoretical construct. Moreover, these results are expected to shift the current lax practices regarding naps in preschools to a practice of nap-promotion and better regard for the length of the nap opportunity. The translational significance may be seen in new policies regarding in-class nap opportunities and pediatric nap guidelines for preschool children. The theoretical significance is that these outcomes will drive an entirely new research dimension for educational sciences (sleep as a novel target to enhance learning) and spur further developmental studies on the influence and underpinnings of sleep-dependent cognitive and neural processes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding whether mid-day naps benefit learning for preschool children provides important guidance for optimizing early education and developing pediatric guidelines regarding childhood napping. Improving early education will enhance child development and school readiness, factors that are known to have lifelong impact on physical and mental health.

描述（由申请人提供）：睡眠可以保护和增强年轻人的记忆力。具体来说，一系列任务的性能变化在睡眠间隔后相对于清醒间隔的变化更大。睡眠也增强了后续记忆的编码。在年轻人中，中午小睡足以获得这些性能优势。与成年人不同，午睡对幼儿来说是家常便饭。儿童摆脱这种双相睡眠模式的年龄通常受到家长和学校日程安排的影响。午睡是否对幼儿的学习和表现有特别的好处还不清楚。本研究的目的是以午睡为模型，探讨睡眠对幼儿（3-5岁）学习记忆的影响。通过探究中午小睡或醒来间隔前后的回忆，总体假设是中午小睡有益于现有的记忆和随后的学习。在学前班，孩子们将在中午小睡之前（具体目标1）或之后（具体目标2）接受陈述性，情感性或程序性学习任务的训练。在两种情况下，孩子们要么 在此间隔期间促进小睡或唤醒。随后，将在当天和第二天重新评估业绩。研究的具体假设是：a）中午小睡有益于睡眠前学习的大多数任务的表现; B）睡眠后学习的任务的表现上级清醒后学习的任务的表现; c）睡眠的好处即使在过夜睡眠后仍然存在，当睡眠压力和情绪的差异相等时。这项工作是创新的，因为它提出了一个新的应用程序的一个公认的理论结构。此外，这些结果预计将改变目前关于午睡在学龄前学校的松懈做法，以午睡促进和更好地考虑午睡机会的长度的做法。这种转化的意义可以从关于课堂午睡机会的新政策和学龄前儿童的儿科午睡指南中看到。理论意义在于，这些结果将推动教育科学的一个全新的研究维度（睡眠作为增强学习的新目标），并刺激对睡眠依赖性认知和神经过程的影响和基础的进一步发展研究。 公共卫生相关性：了解中午小睡是否有益于学龄前儿童的学习，为优化早期教育和制定有关儿童午睡的儿科指南提供了重要指导。改善早期教育将促进儿童发展和入学准备，这些因素对身心健康具有终身影响。