Poor Sleep & Special Ed Needs

Sleep is very important for a growing child. Parents who have undergone the wrath of a sleep-deprived and cranky kid know the importance and necessity of sleep all too well. However, a recent study now tells us that grouchiness and whining aren’t the only things that parents should be worried about when it comes to a sleep-deprived child.

It turns out that if your young child is experiencing sleep problems, there’s a higher chance that they could develop special education needs by the time that they’re eight years old. A recent study took a look at a number of children, eight percent of which had the worst sleep problems. Researchers discovered that those eight percent of children had the highest risk of having special education needs at age eight—even when statistics were adjusted so that factors like IQ were irrelevant in the results.

It should be noted that only an association between poor sleep and special education needs has been discovered. Researchers have yet to find a cause-and-effect relationship. In addition, this phenomenon could be explained by something other than sleep. Researchers also included that this information is limited because all of the subjects were children from England, and ninety-eight percent of them were white. More conclusive data would’ve come from a more diverse pool of subjects. Nonetheless, the information that we have gotten out of this study brings us one step closer to a healthier world.

In another analysis, 13,024 children were studied. One thousand eight hundred and twenty five of them had special education needs. Out of these 1,825 kids, seventy-one percent of them had suffered from earlier sleep problems. In other words, children who dealt with sleep problems like sleep apnea and snoring in their infant, toddler, and preschool years were more likely to need special education services for things such as speech and behavioral problems a few years later.

Again, no definitive cause-and-effect relationship has been established, but we do know that previous research has given us information that shows how sleep problems affect the brain. For example, sleep deprivation inhibits the brain from making memories. Researchers noted that it’s possible that genetics could explain both sleep problems and disabilities. Ultimately, as loving parents, we are responsible to make sure that our children are getting the proper sleep that they need every night. It could save them from needing special education services later down the road!

How Technology Contributes to Lack of Sleep

Technology is great. It brings people from all over the world closer to one another. Jobs and other tasks are made easier. And the economy is stimulated from all of the new developments that regularly come out of the realm of technology. While the benefits seem endless, there is such a thing as too much technology. And this applies in the bedroom.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than ninety percent of Americans are regularly on the computer or some other kind of electronic device within the hour before we go to sleep. We know it’s tempting to check your newsfeed on Facebook or send a few emails and text messages during the downtime right before bed, but doing so can hurt your healthy sleep cycle. Here’s why: Electronic devices are known to stimulate brain activity, and not surprisingly, disrupt your ability to fall asleep. In addition, the artificial light that comes from the screen of some devices may mess around with the brain chemicals that promote sleep.

A recent study from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute investigated how exposure to light from certain electronic devices affects our hormones tied to sleep. The subjects were studied as they read, played games, and watched movies on an iPad, iPad 2, or PC tablet for various amounts of time. While they were doing these various activities, researchers were measuring the amount of light the subjects’ eyes received.

The results were unmistakable. Researchers found that exposure to light from computer tablets significantly reduced levels of melatonin, a hormone that regulates our internal clocks and plays a significant role in our sleep cycles. They determined that just two hours of exposure to a bright tablet screen at night reduced melatonin levels by about twenty-two percent. This is scarily important because the suppression of melatonin can mean all kinds of bad things health-wise, such as sleep disturbances, and even raising the risk of obesity, diabetes, and other disorders.

We know that it can be hard to cut down your use of electronics, but if you find yourself tossing and turning at night trying to fall asleep, then it’s worth a try to turn off the TV earlier and set down your phone long before you sleep. Other things you can do include limiting your computer use before bed—Facebook will be there in the morning. At the very least, you should at least dim the screen as much as possible so that the contrast between the screen and the dark isn’t so striking. When it comes down to it, studies have shown that using your electronic devices before sleep can greatly contribute to a lack of sleep by altering your hormones and reducing melatonin levels.