Lights Out: Examining Sleep in Children with Vision Impairment

Abstract

Sleep is crucial for development across cognitive, physical, and social-emotional domains. Sleep quality and quantity impact domains of daytime functioning, attainment, and global development. Previous work has explored sleep profiles in typically developing children and children with developmental disorders such as Down syndrome and Williams Syndrome, yet there is a complete absence of published work regarding the sleep profiles of children with vision impairment aged 4–11 years. This is the first known study that examines the sleep profiles in children with vision impairment (n = 58) in comparison to 58 typically developing children (aged 4–11 years) in the UK. Sleep was measured using the Childhood Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ; parental report), actigraphy and sleep diaries. Results showed group differences in subjective CSHQ scores but not objective actigraphy measures. Surprisingly, the findings revealed disordered sleep (namely, poor sleep quantity) in both groups. Discordance between CSHQ and actigraphy measures could represent heightened awareness of sleeping problems in parents/caregivers of children with vision impairment. The implications of this study extend beyond group comparison, examining disordered sleep in ‘typically developing’ children, exploring the potential role of light perception and the importance of sleep quality and quantity in both groups.

Parental and Child Sleep: Children with Vision Impairment, Autistic Children, and Children with Comorbid Vision Impairment and Autism

“…Generally, our exploratory findings are consistent with the previous literature that reports greater sleep disturbance in children with a developmental disability (e.g., [7,8,76]), including autism (e.g., [77][78][79]) in relation to typically developing peers, and contradicted previous findings [27] where developmental condition (i.e., VI or typically developing) did not predict poor sleep outcomes. The CSHQ results further provide evidence that the comorbidity of VI + autism might be a stronger driving condition behind sleep problems and sleep disturbance in the pediatric population compared to a diagnosis of VI or autism alone.…”

“…Adults with vision impairment have predominantly been the focus of the literature to date [23][24][25][26]. Hayton et al [27] reported that both typically developing children and children with vision impairment (VI; ranging from blindness to partial sight) had poor sleep quality and suboptimal sleep quantity on specific measures of sleep, indicating that sleeping problems were characteristic of the pediatric population, and not specific to diagnosis. However, the sample in [27]'s study did not extend to children with dual diagnoses of vision impairment and autism, nor any other comorbid condition.…”