Kids' grades dropping? They may need sleep, not homework
By Associated Press
Published November 11, 2005
WASHINGTON - Staying up an hour or two past bedtime makes it far harder for kids to learn, say scientists who deprived youngsters of sleep and tested whether their teachers could tell the difference.
They could.
If parents want their children to thrive academically, "Getting them to sleep on time is as important as getting them to school on time," said psychologist Gahan Fallone, who conducted the research at Brown Medical School.
The study, unveiled Thursday at an American Medical Association science writers meeting, was conducted on healthy children who had no evidence of sleep- or learning-related disorders.
Difficulty paying attention was among the problems the sleepy youngsters faced - raising the question of whether sleep deprivation could prove even worse for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
Fallone now is studying that question, and suspects that sleep problems "could hit children with ADHD as a double whammy."
Sleep experts have long warned that Americans of all ages don't get enough shuteye. Not getting enough is linked to a host of problems, from car crashes as drivers doze off to crippled memory and inhibited creativity. But how sleep correlates with school performance is hard to prove.
So Brown researchers set out to test whether teachers could detect problems with attention and learning when children stayed up late - even if the teachers had no idea how much sleep their students got.
They recruited 74 6- to 12-year-olds from Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts for the three-week study.
Teachers weren't told how much the children slept or when they stayed up late, but rated the students on a variety of performance measures each week. The teachers reported significantly more academic problems during a week of sleep deprivation, the study, which will be published in the journal Sleep in December, concluded.
Students who got eight hours of sleep or less a night were more forgetful, had the most trouble learning new lessons, and had the most problems paying attention, reported Fallone, now at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Mo.
SUFFICIENT SLEEP
The amount of recommended hours of sleep per day changes with age.
