Sleep, Affect, and Social Competence from Preschool to Preadolescence: Distinct Pathways to Emotional and Social Adjustment for Boys and for Girls.

Marsha Weinraub,Joan E Foley

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00711

Abstract

Using a normative sample of 1,057 children studied across 4 waves over 6 years with multiple informants, we investigated transactional relations for sleep problems, anxious-depressed symptoms, and social functioning from preschool to preadolescence, assessing cumulative effects on children's emotional and social adjustment. To examine sex differences in the developmental processes, we conducted separate analyses for boys and girls. For both boys and girls, longitudinal cross-lagged panel analyses showed that preschool sleep problems directly predicted anxious-depressed symptoms 2 years later; indirect effects continued into preadolescence. For girls, early and later sleep problems directly or indirectly predicted a wide variety of preadolescent emotional and social adjustment domains (e.g., depressive symptoms, school competence, emotion regulation, risk-taking behaviors). For boys, social competence played a more important role than sleep problems in predicting preadolescent adjustment. Among the first set of findings that demonstrate longitudinal relations between sleep problems and social functioning in middle childhood and preadolescence, these results support Dahl's and Walker's neurological models of sleep and emotional functioning. We discuss these findings in light of relations between sleep and affect during pre-pubertal development and discuss differential findings for boys and girls.

Highlights

The current study investigates the series of transactions that take place for sleep, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and social competence in a large community sample of children from preschool to fifth grade using a four-wave design capable of uncovering the direction of effects (Selig and Little, 2012) among these domains and their cumulative effects on emotional and social adjustment at the end of middle childhood
The mean values for sleep problems reflected a “floor effect” that might imply that sleep problems were not a problem for most children
To address this potential interpretation, we categorized sleep problems into two groups with “0” = mothers rated their child as having no sleep problems, or “1” = mothers rated their child as having one or more sleep problems “sometimes or often,” we found that at 54 months, mothers reported that 71% of boys and 61% of girls experienced one or more sleep problems sometimes or often times

Summary

Introduction

Emerging research supports a role for children’s sleep in the optimal regulation of affective functioning, yet this relationship is likely complex, bidirectional, and influenced by developmental change (Dahl, 1996; Walker, 2009; Leahy and Gradisar, 2012; Kahn et al, 2013; Kelly and ElSheikh, 2013; Wang et al, 2016; Williams et al, 2016). Insufficient sleep appears to interfere with the capacity to regulate behavior and emotion, with increased risk for heightened anxiety, negative mood, impulsivity, and a compromised ability to respond appropriately to social stresses (Sadeh et al, 2002; Gregory et al, 2005, 2009; Dahl and Harvey, 2007; Alfano et al, 2009; Soffer-Dudek et al, 2011). Difficulties with sleep and affect could have negative and spiraling effects over time on children’s emotional and social adjustment. Such effects may lead to decrements in academic performance, feelings of isolation, clinical depression, substance abuse, and maladaptive risk-taking (Broidy et al, 2003; Shaw et al, 2003)

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Conclusion