EEG Sleep of Normal Healthy Children. Part I: Findings Using Standard Measurement Methods

Abstract

Summary: Despite the increasing application of all-night electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep studies to children for clinical as well as for research purposes, readily available normal EEG sleep standards for the period of childhood have remained sparse and, at present, reflect data on only approximately 100 children 6 to 16 years of age. As part of a large scale study examining various aspects of EEG sleep among children, findings derived using standard recording and scoring methods are reported for a new sample of nearly 100 normal, healthy children and are compared with existing standards. Data obtained add substantially to the existing database and generally confirm findings of previous normative reports on children in this age range. Key Words: EEG sleep--Standard measurement methods-Normal sleep, children.The objective measurement of human sleep using all-night recording methods represents an area of ongoing interest and activity, most notably~ince the discovery of REM sleep in 1953 (1,2). Although precise mechanisms have yet to be determined, work in this field has been both rich and diverse, contributing greatly to our present understanding of the complex processes involved in human sleep-wake cycles (3-6). Increasing interest in human sleep has been even more apparent in the last decade with the emergence of growing numbers of highly specialized clinical sleep facilities and the establishment of a working classification system for the sleep and arousal disorders (7). Thus, in addition to their continued application in research efforts to realize more fully the neurophysiological bases of sleep and the various sleep states, all-night electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep studies are being applied in the clinical assessment of a broad range of sleep-wake disturbances among individuals of all ages. These more recent activities have not only renewed interest in various aspects of "normal" sleep-wake behavior across the life span but have also highlighted the relative paucity of EEG sleep standards for certain age groups. Among children, for example, the most frequently referenced normative data include the preliminary observations of Roffwarg

Nocturnal Release of Immunoreactive Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone and Growth Hormone in Normal Children

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First Night Effect Analysis in a Cohort of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Evidence from a variety of patient populations and studies of healthy children suggest that children, much like adults, show improvements in sleep quality from the first to second night in the sleep laboratory, 3,[5][6][7][8][9][10]19 with some measures of sleep quality continuing to improve when data from subsequent nights are collected. 3 The most consistently reported changes are in TST, SE, WASO, and REM parameters. Prior to this report, no study has explicitly examined the first night effect in a group of young children with autism.…”

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