According to new research, quality sleep may have a significant impact on the cognitive performance of both autistic and neurotypical children.
Published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology, researchers at the Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies in Canada included data on 13 autistic children and 13 neurotypical children to reach their findings. All of the children made up a mean age of 10 years old, did not have any sleep issues or intellectual deficiencies, and were not on any medications.
The EEG measures observed by the researchers showed that disruptions to protective brain waves as the children slept were linked to lower verbal IQ test scores. Just one night of poor sleep was found to be enough to significantly decrease performances on the test.
Director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Université de Montréal, Roger Godbut says that this discovery is important to sleep research as a whole as it provides evidence of sleep’s role in solidifying cognitive abilities.
“This study establishes beyond a doubt that children and adolescents are particularly affected by a lack of sleep, especially because they are in an important developmental period. This is also an important finding given that 10% to 25% of Canadian children and adolescents — and 45% to 85% of autistic children — have sleep problems.”
The researchers also noted the results of this study may help more accurate treatments for children with sleep disorders to be developed, as well as “gives hope to anyone living with autism thanks to new avenues to both treat insomnia and help these children fully develop their abilities.”
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