Collaborators
- Dr Elizabeth Schaughency (Department of Psychology)
This research programme has a focus on investigating the impact of sleep disorders in children and adolescents on daytime functioning, and in particular academic performance.We measure sleep and breathing, cognitive development, and learning through community-based studies focusing on early childhood development and some clinic-based studies focusing on specific problems (e.g. obesity). Our first publication from this research was one of a handful of treatment studies suggesting a causal relationship between sleep disordered breathing and problematic behaviour and inattention in children. We have also published results from a developmental study demonstrating the dynamic nature of SDB as children grow, the associations between SDB and behaviour/inattention in very young children (age 3) and beyond, links with poorer memory in school-aged childre, with a focus on learning, memory and early literacy and numeracy and through. Current projects include the relationship between SDB and those struggling academically i.e. performing 'below' or 'well' below that of their peers according to National Standards reports. Other studies include the use of sensitive measures of literacy and numeracy to monitor SDB intervention progress over a short time span.