Study flags later risks for sleep-deprived kids
Children ages 3 to 7 who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to have problems with attention, emotional control, and peer relationships in mid-childhood, according to a new study led by a Harvard pediatrician. Reported online in the journal Academic Pediatrics, the study found significant differences in the responses of parents and teachers to surveys regarding executive function — which includes attention, working memory, reasoning, and problem-solving — and behavioral problems in 7-year-old children depending on how much sleep they regularly received at younger ages. “We found that children who get an insufficient amount of sleep in their preschool and early school-age years have a higher risk of poor neurobehavioral function at around age 7,” says Elsie Taveras, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School and chief of general pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, who led the study. “The associations between insufficient sleep and poorer functioning persisted even after...