Maintain a regular sleep schedule for children so that every night counts for morning cognitive performance¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article recommends that caregivers treat nightly sleep variability, not just average sleep behavior, as consequential for children's school-day cognition. Because single bad nights were associated with lower morning cognitive resources, the authors advise that "children might benefit from a regular sleep schedule to produce their best cognitive performance in the morning" and that caregivers observe how much time in bed an individual child needs and keep it as steady as possible.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Caregivers need to know an individual child's typical time in bed, since deviations from the child's own average were generally unfavorable

Constraints¶

• Findings are within-person couplings from observational ambulatory data, not experimental manipulations of sleep schedules

Target Learners¶

• elementary school children (8–11 years)

Target Learning Goals¶

• maintaining daily working memory resources needed for school learning

Claims¶

• Previous night's sleep quality and time in bed predict children's morning working memory performance fluctuations [+W]
• Elementary school children show substantial day-to-day within-person fluctuations in sleep quality, time in bed, daytime tiredness, and working memory performance [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Nighttime Blue Light Reduction

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Könen, T., Dirk, J., & Schmiedek, F. (2015). Cognitive benefits of last night's sleep: daily variations in children's sleep behavior are related to working memory fluctuations. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56(2), 171–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12296