Self-Regulation and Sleep in Children At Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders

描述(申请人提供)：这项研究的主要目标是更好地了解自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)高危儿童的自我调节能力的发展，并阐明这些儿童的自我调节能力与睡眠之间的纵向联系。研究患有自闭症儿童的婴儿兄弟姐妹至关重要，因为他们不仅有患自闭症的风险，而且还会出现许多负面的发育结果，包括语言、社会情绪功能、注意力、行为和认知方面的困难。以前对婴儿兄弟姐妹患自闭症风险的研究主要集中在沟通、社交和限制/重复行为这三个核心缺陷领域，但最近的研究和初步数据表明，这一群体的困难更广泛地延伸到自我调节方面的困难。具体地说，注意力、行为和消极情绪控制方面的问题在患有自闭症儿童的婴儿兄弟姐妹中似乎更高。这些方面的困难与睡眠密切相关。有睡眠问题的儿童在注意力和行为控制方面有更多困难，表现出更多的负面情绪和情绪反应。需要对患有自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹进行更多的研究，以阐明他们不利的发育结果，拟议的研究旨在自我调节和睡眠领域内做到这一点。两项研究旨在考察两组儿童的自我调节和睡眠问题以及它们之间的动态发展进程：患有自闭症儿童的婴儿兄弟姐妹(高风险)和典型发育儿童的婴儿兄弟姐妹(低风险)。第一项是一项横断面研究，考察24个月和36个月大的高危婴儿兄弟姐妹的自我调节和睡眠问题的比率。第二项是前瞻性的纵向研究，评估18个月、24个月和30个月大的儿童，以检查发育过程以及自我调节和睡眠之间的关系。在每项研究中，将通过行为、生理和父母报告的测量来评估自我调节和睡眠。这一研究的最终意义是通过提请人们注意往往未被考虑的发展领域：自我调节和睡眠，改善患有自闭症风险儿童的发展轨迹和家庭生活。了解睡眠问题的发生率和睡眠在自我调节中的作用，可能会为评估、治疗和育儿指南提供信息。施维滕贝格博士拥有自我调节和睡眠发展方面的教育和研究经验，是这项拟议研究的理想人选。她接受过睡眠生理评估和两种行为自我调节范例的专门培训。她在睡眠和自我调节方面的知识包括评估程序、编码、筛选和分析，她在这两个领域都发表了论文。施维滕贝格博士还参与了两项关于处于危险中的儿童的前瞻性纵向研究，这让她敏锐地意识到完成这项研究所需的现实生活考虑因素。通过本申请中建议的培训，她将获得从博士后学者过渡到独立研究人员所需的最终临床、方法学、统计学和实验室管理技能，在风险儿童的自我调节和睡眠发育过程中拥有独特的研究路线。施维滕贝格博士的职业目标是在一所拥有发育障碍中心的大学中获得心理学或人类发展系的终身教职，并建立一个研究实验室，研究患有发育障碍和面临发育障碍风险的幼儿的各种自我调节能力。施维滕贝格博士的培训计划将在最顶尖的发育障碍研究中心之一--加州大学戴维斯分校MI.N.D.研究所(神经发育障碍医学调查)进行。她的培训包括提高临床评估技能，学习专门的非侵入性睡眠评估技术(视频睡眠图)，获得纵向数据分析方面的高级统计培训，学习眼球跟踪评估和编码方法，以及完成实验室管理和领导能力的结构化培训。她的赞助人萨利·奥佐诺夫博士和托马斯·安德斯博士是自闭症和睡眠领域的两位国际公认的学者，他们致力于她的培训和未来的成功。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goals of this research are to better understand the development of self-regulation in young children at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and to elucidate the longitudinal associations between self-regulation and sleep in these children. It is critically important to study the infant siblings of children with ASD because they are at risk not only for ASD, but also for numerous negative developmental outcomes including difficulties in language, social-emotional functioning, attention, behavior and cognition. Previous studies of infant siblings at risk for ASD have focused mainly on the three core deficit areas of communication, social, and restricted/repetitive behavior, but recent research and preliminary data suggest that difficulties of this group extend more broadly to difficulties with self-regulation. Specifically, problems with attention, behavior and negative emotion control appear elevated in infant siblings of children with ASD. Difficulties in these areas are robustly associated with sleep. Children with sleep problems have more difficulties with attention and behavior control and exhibit more negative affect and emotional reactivity. Additional research on siblings of children with ASD is needed to elucidate their adverse developmental outcomes and the proposed studies aim to do this within the domains of self-regulation and sleep. Two studies are proposed to examine self-regulation and sleep problems and the dynamic developmental progression between them in two groups of children: infant siblings of children with ASD (high risk) and infant siblings of typically developing children (low risk). The first is a cross-sectional study examining the rates of self-regulation and sleep problems in high risk infant siblings at 24 and 36 months of age. The second is a prospective longitudinal study that assesses children at 18, 24, and 30 months of age to examine the developmental progression and associations between self-regulation and sleep. Within each study self-regulation and sleep will be assessed with behavioral, physiological, and parent-report measures. The ultimate significance of this line of research is to improve the developmental trajectories and family life of children at risk for ASD by drawing attention to often unconsidered areas of development: self-regulation and sleep. Understanding the rates of sleep problems and the roles of sleep in self-regulation has the potential to inform assessment, treatment and parenting guidelines. Dr. Schwichtenberg is an ideal candidate for the proposed studies with her educational and research experience in self-regulation and sleep development. She has specialized training in the physiological assessment of sleep and two behavioral self-regulation paradigms. Her knowledge of sleep and self- regulation includes assessment procedures, coding, screening, and analyzing and she has published in both areas. Dr. Schwichtenberg also has experience on two prospective longitudinal studies of children developing at risk, making her keenly aware of the real life considerations needed to complete such a study. With the training proposed in this application she will secure the final clinical, methodological, statistical, and lab management skills needed to transition from a postdoctoral scholar to an independent researcher with a unique line of research in the developmental processes of self-regulation and sleep in children developing at risk. Dr. Schwichtenberg's career goals are to obtain a tenure-track position in a department of Psychology or Human Development at a university with an established developmental disabilities center and to launch a research lab that studies a variety of self-regulatory capacities in young children with and at risk for developmental disabilities. Dr. Schwichtenberg's training plan will be carried out at one of the foremost centers for excellence in developmental disabilities, the University of California - Davis, M.I.N.D. Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders). Her training includes advancing her skills in clinical assessment, learning a specialized non-invasive sleep assessment technique (videosomnography), securing advanced statistical training in longitudinal data analysis, learning eye-tracking assessment and coding methods, and completing structured training in laboratory management and leadership. Her sponsors Dr. Sally Ozonoff and Dr. Thomas Anders are two internationally recognized scholars in the areas of autism and sleep and are dedicated to her training and future success.