ERIC Number: EJ977902
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1750-9467
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Methods for Assessing Sleep in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review
Hodge, Danelle; Parnell, Andrea M. N.; Hoffman, Charles D.; Sweeney, Dwight P.
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, v6 n4 p1337-1344 Oct-Dec 2012
A literature review completed by Bauer and Blunden (2008) determined that compared to objective measures, subjective assessments of sleep for typically developing children (e.g., parental reports) were of limited utility. No comparable literature review has been undertaken to determine whether subjective measures are appropriate for assessing sleep in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Such a review is necessary as children with ASD have more sleep problems than typically developing children and children's sleep difficulties can negatively affect the child and other family members. It is, therefore, important to have measures of sleep for children with ASD that can reliably detect sleep problems and track improvements in sleep. This literature review described frequently used measures of children's sleep and evaluated their utility for assessing sleep in children with ASD. It was determined that, with the exception of sleep latency, parents' reports of children's sleep are not consistently associated with objective measures of children's sleep. This was true for single-item parent-reports and for a widely used multi-item parent-report measure of children's sleep. Limitations of objective sleep measures (e.g., polysomnography, actigraphy), including the inability of children with ASD to tolerate such methods, are described.
Descriptors: Autism, Sleep, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Children, Measures (Individuals), Reliability, Literature Reviews, Parent Attitudes, Correlation, Diagnostic Tests, Evaluation Methods
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Publication Type: Information Analyses; Journal Articles
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A

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