The Lead Domino Series: Part 2 - Beyond Academics

 We are pleased to share the second part of a three-part series by a new team of guest bloggers, Brandon Slade and Katie Zak of Untapped Learning, whose first post for The Yellin Center Blog explained the concept of the Lead Domino as a way to look at Executive Functioning.

When we talk about the lead domino with our students, it’s often in the context of school.

 If you can finish the missed homework assignment in math from Monday, you’ll have a better, more complete understanding of that section, then you’ll be able to finish your review packet, which will set you up for focused studying material for the chapter test next week…

However, we sometimes face situations where our lead domino is something outside of academics or work; it’s actually just a small change we could implement in our everyday lives that would make things run more smoothly.

One of our favorite lead domino examples to help people start their day off on the right foot is the landing/launching pad. For adults, the landing pad is where we drop our wallet, keys, and sunglasses as soon as we walk in the door. When we leave, it becomes our launching pad. Because we’re taking the step to place our necessities in the same spot every time we come home, we aren’t scrambling the next time we head out the door. Everything is right where we left it, every time. We can simply scoop up those essentials and leave on time. For students, a launching pad can be an organized backpack sitting by the front door each morning. At night, if you and your student can take the time to pack their laptop, chargers, pencils, all binders, etc., and even make lunch before heading to bed, you can prevent the majority of conflicts that usually take over your mornings.

Another lead domino that can positively affect our day is exercise—we know that exercise is the miracle drug. Exercising helps us activate neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. When we find ourselves stuck, unmotivated, or overloaded, getting up to go for a 20-minute walk can change the trajectory of our whole day and our productivity. This exercise increases blood flow to the brain, triggers those neurotransmitters, and helps us concentrate. When we return to our to-do list, workload, or whatever it is that’s overwhelming us, we’ll find that our focus has improved significantly thanks to that exercise and its impact on our brain. When students are stuck on a homework assignment and have been sitting in front of a computer for too long, the action they need to take is entirely non-academic; they just need to get up and move.

One of the most important, and hardest, lead dominos that sets us up for success, is sleep. Sleep can dictate almost every aspect of our lives: focus, mood, energy level, etc. It has the power to positively or negatively define a day, or even a week. However, getting more sleep is never a quick fix. Behind better sleep is a routine that must be developed and maintained.

The lead domino can be, but does not always need to be, an action or a task that defines your whole day. It may simply be a choice that can help you move forward in a small series of events, and you probably have a few lead dominos that you could choose from that would all result in the same outcome—you just have to get started. Common examples of this include: jumping in the shower, making a cup of coffee, or choosing to face the one task you’ve been putting off that’s hanging over your head. All of these actions can help you move forward in a small way, but that little bit of momentum can make it easier to tackle the rest of your day. Two hold-ups we see, in both adults and in adolescents, are: struggling to follow-through with the lead domino, and getting caught between two actions and not being able to decide the best way to move forward.

For example: You’re trying to brush your teeth and get out the door to go grocery shopping. As you’re putting toothpaste on your toothbrush, you realize you have a load of clean laundry that needs to be moved from the washer to the dryer. So you put down your toothbrush to go flip the laundry, but on your way to the basement you stop to pick up and put away shoes that were a tripping hazard. As you’re putting them away, you notice some empty mugs on the coffee table, which reminds you that you haven’t had a single sip of water all morning. You pause for a minute to go grab and drink a nice, big glass of water. As you set the glass down, you remember the laundry, but you also remember that your toothbrush is sitting on the bathroom sink, locked and loaded for you to brush your teeth. What’s your next move?

Brush your teeth, flip the laundry—you just need to decide. Committing to that decision and moving forward will help propel you to achieve your original goal: getting out the door and making it to the grocery store.

Does this series of events sound familiar?

As parents, educators, or just trusted adults, we can get so focused on helping students succeed that we forget that everything we relay to our students also applies to us. We’re not above facing those daily challenges, they just typically don’t come to us in the form of math assignments. When we can apply our own advice to ourselves, we model real-world efforts and accomplishments for our students, showing them the effectiveness of our lead dominos outside of school.

Dark and Early Mornings

A recent social media post from a relative in Florida lamented his son's early school start time. "Somebody has to get on the bus way too early. Middle school boys were like a pack of zombies lingering around the bus stop staring at their phones," he noted. "It will be nice when we change the clocks and I won't have to turn on the outside lights when he leaves the house in the morning."

But light or dark [and remember that this Saturday night we turn our clocks back one hour, so it will be lighter in the morning -- but will get dark as early as 4:30 pm later in November and even earlier in December], there is nothing to be done about the shorter days that winter brings.

What can be addressed, and what California has decided to do over the next three years, is change the start time of school for students. A new law mandates that most middle and high schools in California begin not earlier than 8 and 8:30 a.m., respectively. The law contains exemptions for some rural schools and its gradual implementation is designed to allow time for new teacher contracts to reflect the change in schedules.

We have written numerous times about the need for adequate sleep for children of all ages; just search "sleep" in the subject box on the right-hand side of this post. Many of our discussions of sleep are based on research referenced by our colleagues at The American Academy of Pediatrics, that 

“ [it is] ... clear that adolescents who get enough sleep have a reduced risk of being overweight or suffering depression, are less likely to be involved in automobile accidents, and have better grades, higher standardized test scores and an overall better quality of life. [In addition] studies have shown that delaying early school start times is one key factor that can help adolescents get the sleep they need to grow and learn.”

Preliminary calculations of the cost-benefit issues associated with later school times indicate that "the benefits of later start times far out-weigh the immediate costs" in just two years.

As California implements its new policy and researchers examine the impact on student health and achievement, they will also be looking at the economic issues involved in this major state-wide shift. We will continue to follow this issue as it evolves over the next several years. 

Behaviors That Impact Impulsivity

Research findings published in the September issue of Pediatrics look at the effects of "Movement Behaviors" on impulsivity in more than 4500 children, ages 8-11. These guidelines (The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth) aren't really all about movement; they are evidence-based recommendations that children 5 to 13 years old:

• Accumulate a minimum of 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity; and
• Spend not more than 2 hours a day on recreational screen time; and
• Get between 9 and 11 hours sleep each night.

The researchers were interested in looking at whether these behaviors would have an impact on impulsivity, which is a core characteristic in attention disorders as well as certain behavior disorders and emotional dysregulation. They began with the hypothesis that children who met all of the recommendations for these parameters would show less impulsivity than those who did not. 

They looked at various combinations of physical activity, sleep, and screen time and determined that 30 percent of the children did not meet any of the recommendations. Less than 5 percent of the children met all the guidelines. The researchers found that the most important factors in whether children demonstrated reduced impulsivity (and its positive counterpart, perseverance) was sufficient sleep and limited screen time. Physical activity seemed to have much less of an impact.

 The researchers note, "Our findings highlight that sleep and [screen time] interact in a fashion that provides unique benefits compared with meeting either movement behavior alone and may be especially clinically relevant to target concurrently in interventions, given a small percentage of children meet these movement behavior guidelines."

They conclude that while physical activity may not impact impulsivity, it has other important benefits. Furthermore, strategies to limit recreational screen time while encouraging early bedtimes and sufficient sleep, can help avoid and treat impulsivity related disorders. 

Photo by Alfred Rowe on Unsplash

Sleep and Memory

We've written countless times about sleep, and the importance of sleep for children of all ages.* Now, a new study paints a clear picture of how academic learning is significantly affected by sleep deprivation - and how this impact continues in effect over a period of several weeks.

A new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, noted in AAP News, examined the effects of sleep deprivation on 59 teens ages 15-18 at a boarding school in Singapore. The group was divided into two parts; one set of students could sleep for nine hours, which is the generally recommended length of sleep for teens of that age group. The other set of students were permitted only five hours of sleep, an amount not unusual for sleep deprived students.

After a period of four days, designed to replicate a typical school week, both groups of students were taught detailed facts about ants and crabs over the course of a six hour day. The students were tested on what they had learned 30 minutes and then three days after the lesson concluded. Some of the students (from both the sleep deprived and the control groups) were also tested six weeks after the lesson.

The study authors noted, " We found significantly reduced retention of factual knowledge after four nights of restricted sleep, and this deficit was still evident when tested 6 weeks later." The data shows:

• 30 minutes after the lesson, the sleep deprived students retained 26% less information than the control group, a finding that the researchers note may be attributed to impaired encoding of the material in the first place.
• After three days, the sleep deprived students retained 34% less than the control group.
• Six weeks later, among those of the students who returned for follow up (14 sleep restricted and 22 of the control group), the sleep restricted participants retained 65% less of the learned material for certain responses.  

This study should be required reading for all teens who dismiss the importance of a full night's sleep.

*The links to our blog posts on sleep are too numerous to include. You can find them by searching the term "sleep" or selecting "sleep" from our list of blog topics, both of which are located on the right hand side of this post. 

Photo by Tracey Hocking on Unsplash

Night-time Screen Use and Sleep

Any child or teen who has access to an iPad, tablet, or smart phone seems to have it glued to their hand, giving it up reluctantly only when parents or teachers insist. 

We often recommend e-books for the students we see hear at The Yellin Center who have difficulty with printed material. They are great ways to allow students to access material they might not be able to read on their own and to keep up with both class content and the latest popular book series that their friends might be discussing. However, our recommendation is always accompanied by a reminder that using an e-reader before bedtime can affect sleep.

 

A newly released study (this open access study shows up as an abstract, but the full text is available from this link as a free download) which looked at data from over 6600 11 to 12-year-olds from in and around London who reported any use of Screen Based Media Devices (SBMD - mobile phone, tablet, laptop, television etc) supports our cautionary recommendation.

The goal of the researchers was to look at the impact of SBMD in both dark and artificially lit rooms and to determine whether and how such use affected sleep and what scientists call "health-related quality of life" (HRQOL). Scientists found that the subjects "... who used mobile phones or watched television at night-time with the light on in the room experienced worse sleep outcomes than adolescents who did not use these devices at night-time. However, the effects were even greater when device use occurred in darkness." In addition, any kind of night-time use of even one SBMD was "... associated with poor sleep quality on all dimensions including experiencing difficulty falling asleep."

These findings may provide the push needed to get teens to put away their devices at bedtime -- and, hopefully, can influence their parents as well. Sleep well!

More Reasons for Sufficient Sleep, Exercise, and Screen Limits

Parenting is not an easy job. Parents usually know what their children should be doing -- getting plenty of sleep, lots of exercise, and having limited screen time, among other things -- but applying these goals to their children is not always easy.

A recent study reported in the British medical journal Lancet Child and Adolescent Health looked at 4524 children in the U.S., aged 8–11 years, to examine the extent to which these elementary age children met current recommendations set forth in the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth. These recommendations include getting 9-11 hours of sleep each night, at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day, and having less than two hours of recreational screen time daily.

The children in the study were evaluated using the NIH Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function , which  looks at such components of cognitive function as Executive Function, Episodic Memory, Language, Processing Speed, Working Memory, and Attention.

The researchers found that just over one-half of the children met the sleep recommendations. 37% of the children met the limits on screen time, and only 18% met the physical activity recommendations. 71% of the children met at least one of these recommendations but only 5% met all three. Almost 30% of the children in the study met none of the three goals. The more of these goals the children met, the higher they scored on the NIH Toolbox Assessments. Children who met the goals for limited screen time and sufficient sleep (likely connected in their daily lives) scored roughly five percent higher on the NIH Toolbox parameters than did those children who met neither.

Hopefully, seeing the real, positive associations between meeting the recommendations for these behaviors and improved cognition may be enough to reinforce parental efforts to get their children to meet these laudable goals for sleep, exercise, and screen limits.

How Much Sleep Do We Need?

Over the years, we've written about sleep countless times. But one question that many families who come to The Yellin Center ask is just how much sleep is appropriate for students at different ages.

The National Sleep Foundation recently put together an expert panel, consisting of members of the American Academy of Pediatrics and 11 other groups, as well as half a dozen individual sleep experts. The panel reviewed existing literature and came up with recommendations for various age groups as follows:

• Newborns (0-3 months)             14-17 hours per day
• Infants (4-11 months)                12-15 hours
• Toddlers (1-2 years)                   11-14 hours
• Preschoolers (3-5 years)            10-13 hours
• School age (6-13 years)               9-11 hours
• Teenagers (14-17 years)               8-10 hours
• Adults (18-64 years)                     7-9 hours
• Older adults (65 years +)              7-8 hours

The panel noted, "Importantly, ... some individuals might sleep longer or shorter than the recommended times with no adverse effects. However, individuals with sleep durations far outside the normal range may be engaging in volitional sleep restriction or have serious health problems. An individual who intentionally restricts sleep over a prolonged period may be compromising his or her health and well-being."

There are variations in how much sleep children and adults need to thrive. But if your child -- or you -- is consistently sleeping outside these general guidelines, it could have an impact on learning and health, or be a symptom of an underlying medical issue. In either case, it is worth discussing with your physician. 

Sleep and Productive Forgetting

We’ve blogged numerous times over the years about sleep, from sleep recommendations to tips for waking up. Meanwhile, scientists have been spending many of their waking moments trying to learn more about this important but not wholly understood phenomenon. The New York Times highlighted some recent findings.

Examination of mouse brains has revealed that their brain synapses, and accompanying amounts of surface proteins, are smaller when sleeping than when awake. Researchers were able to use a chemical to block this synaptic pruning in some mice but not others. All of the mice, before any were exposed to the chemical, were given a mild shock when they walked over a particular section of the floor. The mice that were then exposed to the chemical overnight, so were prevented from pruning their brain synapses, exhibited trepidation regardless of what environment they were placed in the next day. The mice that had been able to do their regular synaptic pruning only froze up in the particular area where they had received the shock.

The results suggested to one of the researchers that “You can forget in a smart way.” In this experiment, synaptic pruning seemed to narrow down or restrict the shock memory to the particular environment in which it occurred. At least one function of sleep may be for the brain to do some strategic self-editing to keep memories from becoming fuzzy.

photo credit: Rachel Fury via FlickrCC

Alarm Clock Apps and Devices for Sleepyheads

There must be folks who jump out of bed in the morning bright and early. There must be folks who don't want to roll over and get just a bit more sleep. And there must be folks who are never, ever late to get started because they hit the "snooze" button on their alarm clock, only to wake up with just enough time to make it to work or school. There must be ... somewhere..

.

For the rest of us -- and our kids, who will face school mornings all too soon -- we've come across a some ingenious ways to avoid oversleeping. We hope you find one or more of these helpful. 

The Walk Me Up app is an alarm that won't shut off until you are actually up and walking around. Your phone needs to be on with notifications enabled. Free for iOS devices.

The Barcode Alarm Clock requires you to not just get out of bed, but to take a photo of a bar code you have previously selected (your breakfast cereal, your toothpaste, etc.) to turn off the alarm. You can also set it to require multiple bar codes for items that you encounter as you move through your morning activities. Described by one reviewer as, "Very loud and annoying"(which is the point of this alarm), The Barcode Alarm Clock is free for iOS devices. 

In a similar vein, Alarmy (Sleep If U Can) requires you to set it up by registering a photo of a place in your room or house (the bathroom is one possibility). Then, once it is set, you need to take a photo of that place to turn off the alarm. Its creators note with pride that it has been described as "The World’s Most Annoying Alarm." It's free for Android devices and $1.99 for iOS.

Would you prefer something that's not dependent on your phone? You might want to try Clocky, which rolls off your bedside table and hides, making beeping noises until you find it and turn it off. It's more expensive, at $27.99, but if it works for you or your heavy sleeper it might well be worth the investment. 

Early Childhood Bedtime and Adolescent Obesity

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise". 

Benjamin Franklin

We've written numerous posts on the importance of sleep, but newly reported research adds an interesting perspective to this subject. A study in The Journal of Pediatrics found a correlation between late bedtimes (after 9 p.m.) for preschool children and obesity rates for these children when they reached the age of 15. 

The researchers looked at almost 1,000 healthy youngsters with an average age of 4.7 years in 1995, examining such aspects of their lives as their bedtimes and the kind of interactions they had with their mothers, something called "maternal sensitivity". These same children were followed by the research team and their BMI (body mass index, a measure of obesity) was determined when they were 15 years old. 

The study team found that those teens whose parents reported the earliest bedtimes (8 p.m. or earlier, comprising one-quarter of the group) had a rate of obesity of 10 percent. Those teens who had bedtimes as young children between 8 and 9 p.m. (one-half of those studied) had an obesity rate of 16 percent. And the one-quarter of teens who had the latest bedtime as young children (after 9 p.m.) had an obesity rate of 23 percent. These findings were not related to maternal sensitivity and were independent of socio-economic status and maternal obesity.  

These obesity rates do not imply causality and the authors did not examine why a later bedtime was linked to higher obesity rates. They did suggest that an earlier bedtime in childhood was one thing parents could do to help their children to become healthy teens. 

Illustration credit: Ana Fukase via flickr cc.

Lag in Putting Sleep Research into Practice

A recent editorial in The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter expresses frustration with the lengthy time gap between important scientific discoveries and the implementation of these discoveries in everyday practice.

Dr. Gregory Fritz notes that the lag between research findings and changes in practice and behavior is often cited to be 17 years on the average, but that the disconnect is particularly egregious when it comes to what researchers know about the importance of sleep for adolescents and the actual amount of sleep that teenagers get. He refers to a 2014 Policy Statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics as evidence that the need for sleep is well-accepted in the pediatric community. The AAP Policy Statement and Dr. Fritz both point to early school start times as a major factor in sleep deprivation. We have written about this issue many times; in fact so often that it is impossible to include links to all relevant posts. Searching "sleep" in the list of blog topics will enable readers to locate all our posts on this subject.

Research has demonstrated that the tendency for teens to stay up later is part of the changes in the level of the hormone melatonin that occur during puberty and continue through adolescence. When teens are able to compensate for this change by sleeping later in the morning, things tend to balance out. But, when teens have an early start time at school and they must get up before they have had the full amount of sleep needed for maximum functioning, their daytime function is impaired. Dr. Fritz notes that, "sleep-deprived adolescents tend to get lower grades and report higher rates of depressive symptoms," compared to those who get the optimal amount of sleep - close to nine hours. Particularly concerning is that there is a correlation between sleep deprived teens and auto accidents. When you consider that teens are inexperienced drivers, and you add in the impairment caused by drowsy driving, this is frightening.

Dr. Fritz laments the failure of adults to take the available data seriously and to take steps to change the start times of school for teens. It may take some logistical maneuvering, but failure to make this a national priority is creating a generation of drowsy, inattentive- and possibly endangered - teens.

photo credit :D Sharon Pruitt @ flickrcc

Babies’ Naps May be Key to Learning

To most people, the sight of a napping baby is a calm, peaceful one. But a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that there’s actually a lot going on beneath the surface.

In the study, researchers performed specific actions in front of babies 6 to 12 months old. Then some of the babies napped for varying times while others didn’t sleep at all. Four hours later, only the babies who had gotten the chance to sleep demonstrated that they remembered the actions. In fact, researchers discovered something even more interesting: The optimal duration of a nap for learning seemed to be 30 minutes or more. Babies who caught quick catnaps showed much poorer memories for what they’d seen than babies who slept for at least half an hour.

The researchers believe that naps shield babies’ brains from additional incoming stimuli, allowing them to fully process what they have seen and experienced. This study helps to explain why babies need so much sleep, so often; not only are their bodies growing, their brains are hard at work making sense of a world that is new to them.

photo credit: Bridget Coila via flickr cc.

Dream On: Dream Themed Family Fun

Wracking your brain for a fun family activity? Better sleep on it. Dreams are a great theme for starting discussions with children and helping them learn. Most kids love to talk about their dreams and are eager for the chance to learn more about what goes on in their minds when they shut their eyes. Here are some ideas:

• Many children may enjoy keeping a dream journal. Since it’s easiest to remember dreams right after waking up, present your child with a notebook and pen to keep by her bed. When she wakes up, she should write what she remembers about her dream and, if she likes, share it with you. (Be sure to respect her privacy; no peeking if she doesn’t volunteer to share.) Younger kids can dictate their dreams for you to record or draw pictures to show what they dreamed. To make this activity even more enriching, categorize each dream in the journal. Many children will enjoy this task so much they won’t suspect they’re building vocabulary. Choose less common words like “humorous,” “frightening,” “unlikely,” “suspenseful,” etc. 

• Help your little one understand bad dreams through books. Some good choices include The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Dream by Stan and Jan Berenstain and The Dream Jar by Lindan Lee Johnson. Grandmother’s Dreamcatcher by Becky Ray McCain is another excellent choice with a bonus: The book includes instructions for making your own dreamcatcher.

  

• For a more streamlined crafting experience, look for a premade kit like the Leather Factory’s Dream Catcher Kit (available through Amazon and at craft and toy stores). Be prepared to help younger children with this project. 

• Dreams play a central role in Roald Dahl’s beloved book The BFG. Read this to children younger than second or third grade, but seven- or eight-year-olds and up should be able to handle it independently. 

• If your middle and high school-aged dreamers are interested in learning more about their dreams, they may enjoy watching PBS’s documentary What Are Dreams? This fascinating DVD explores the sleeping brain through interviews with neurologists and psychologists. 

Caution Urged in Use of Infant Sleep Machines

They are ubiquitous in baby's bedrooms -- machines designed to help mask disruptive noises and to provide a soothing sound to lull baby to sleep. As any sleep deprived parent of an infant will attest, anything that helps a baby sleep is generally a good thing, but recent research reported in the journal Pediatrics concludes that these machines can produce sounds at levels that can damage infant hearing and, even when played at less than maximum levels, can also have a detrimental impact on speech and language development.

The researchers looked at 14 models of infant sleep machines (ISMs) from online and traditional retailers. The ISMs made a variety of sounds, from heartbeats to whirring to an array of nature sounds. The study measured sound levels using a device designed to simulate the ear canal. Sound levels were measured at three distances, meant to replicate placement in the crib or on the crib rail; on a table near the crib; and across the room from the crib. All of the ISMs produced sounds that exceeded a sound level previously recommended to be the maximum noise level that is safe for infants when placed in the crib or a nearby table. And all but one device exceeded that maximum noise level even when placed across the room.

The researchers caution that more investigation is needed to determine how ISMs are actually used by parents and how masking normal household sounds, including conversations, can impact language and behavioral development in infants. In the meantime, they urge that ISMs should be used at low volume, for short periods of time, and that the device should be placed as far as possible from the infant.

Easing Into a School Sleep Schedule

July is winding down and August is coming up fast -- and for many families that means the start of the school year. Even here in New York City, where school usually starts later than most places, teachers report on September 3rd, although religious holidays push back the start for students until September 9.

Adam Inglis

One important way that parents can help students of all ages get ready for the upcoming school year is to think about sleep We've written before about the importance of sleep and how sufficient, high-quality sleep is crucial for optimal academic performance. When we work with students and parents we inquire about sleep and look at how inadequate sleep, or sleep disruptions, may impact student performance.

During the summer, it's easy for families to put aside strict bedtime rituals and for children to go to bed later than usual, or to sleep well into the morning. Teens who find summer a great time to socialize without the demands of homework may be up later than they would during the school year. And parents, who have enforced bedtimes during the school year, may themselves want a break from arguing about when it is time to go to bed.

Unfortunately, moving from the pace of summer to the more demanding days of school, and the need for a reasonable amount of sleep before leaving home at an early hour, can't happen the night before school starts. Families need to start at least a couple of weeks in advance -- more if possible -- to ease into the schedule they will follow in the fall. It's also important to think about whether your child's regular school year sleep patterns provide sufficient good quality sleep to help make their upcoming year a success.

Study Links Early Snoring to Behavior Problems

A sleeping toddler snoring away may seem cute to parents and other observers, but a new study in the journal Pediatrics raises concerns about the impact of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) -- loud, persistent snoring -- on the future development and behavior of children.

Researchers enrolled 149 child/mother pairs in a prospective study that tracked snoring through the child's third year and categorized the children as non-snorers, transient snorers (who snored at age two or age three but not both) and persistent snorers.The choice of the age group of two to three years was based upon the fact that SDB is known to peak during this period.

The study found that there was a significant increase in behavior problems in the group with persistent SDB even when adjusting for such factors as gender, race, and socioeconomic status. These behavior problems included hyperactivity, depression, and attention. The findings of this study are consistent with findings of studies looking at older children and which hypothesize that the interruption in sleep caused by SDB can interfere with neurological development.

Two other significant findings in this study were that children who were breast fed were less likely to have SDB and that a low socioeconomic level made it more likely that a child would have transient or persistent sleep disordered breathing. None of the children who were fed breast milk for more than a year developed SDB but one-quarter of those who never were fed breast milk or who were fed it for less than one month developed SDB.

The study authors note that interventions to treat snoring have been shown to be helpful and urge that children be screened for sleep disordered breathing. They also stress the positive impact of breast feeding and urge that parents consider this protective factor when making feeding decisions.

Photo: Elizabeth / Creative Commons (modified)

The History of Sleep Recommendations

Over the past several years we have written a number of blogs about sleep: how lack of sleep  impacts learning, falling asleep, the importance of sleep for adults, and the impact of sleep deprivation on teens.

But, for all the attention we have paid to the subject, we were most interested in a new article that looks at recommendations about sleep and how much children actually sleep from an historical perspective. Never Enough Sleep: A Brief History of Sleep Recommendations for Children, published in this month's Pediatrics, looks at recommendations in medical literature from 1887 through 2009. The researchers were able to identify 32 sets of recommendations about how much sleep children should have, which broke into 360 age-specific sleep recommendations.

There were several interesting findings. First, the amount of sleep recommended by "experts" and the actual amount of sleep that children had per night each fell by about 70 minutes through the course of the 20th century. In addition, in the 83% of studies where data was available to compare actual sleep to recommended sleep, the amount of actual sleep was 37 minutes less than recommended sleep -- a number that held steady for all ages of children and over the full time frame of the data studied. 

The authors note that while the medical literature they reviewed -- from the earliest to the most contemporary sources -- all talked about things like "sleep hygiene" and the pressures of modern life (from radio, to television, to computers and video games) on childrens' sleep habits, only one study actually provided research based data for the amount of sleep children should receive. The authors note this lack of hard science and urge that empirical studies be undertaken to understand the actual mechanisms by which inadequate sleep impacts health and performance.

Test-Taking Tips From The Experts

Because of the nature of memory, we often tell students that the best way to study for a test is to take practice tests. Research indicates that rereading study material, the method preferred by most people, is less effective than taking practice tests for two reasons: First, our brains have difficulty distinguishing between material with which we are familiar and material which we truly understand. Students may stop studying too early because they recall seeing information before, only to realize during the test that they didn’t actually understand it. Second, answering practice questions gives the brain practice at retrieving information from long-term memory, the process a student undergoes during actual testing. Students who have the opportunity to rehearse “finding” answers are more prepared to do this quickly and easily on test day.

An article in The Wall Street Journal from earlier this week covers this principle and offers other testing tips derived from a number of studies on learning. For example, nearly everybody knows that eating a nutritious breakfast on test day is important, but a recent experiment demonstrated that consumption of a nutritious diet should start a week before the test date for optimum results. The article also discusses how to balance sleeping and studying, and offers tips to help combat test anxiety. 

Students gearing up for the first round of mid-terms can access the full article here.

Photo used under Creative Commons by Steven S.

Study: Sleep has Major Impact on Learning

A new study by researchers at UC Berkeley has found that special, speedy brain waves - known as "sleep spindles" - may have a deep impact on our ability to take in new information and to consolidate and store what we have recently learned. The findings could have implications on scheduling for education, and further support our strong belief in the value of good sleep habits in fostering healthy, successful students.

According to Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study, published in the new issue of the journal Current Biology, “our findings demonstrate that sleep may selectively seek out and operate on our memory systems to restore their critical functions.This discovery indicates that we not only need sleep after learning to consolidate what we’ve memorized, but that we also need it before learning, so that we can recharge and soak up new information the next day.”

Read more here.

Link Roundup

Summer Must-Read for Kids? Any Book (NY Times)

10 Tips for Women Students in Science Fields (U.S. News & World Report)

Getting the Best out of Boys (Teaching Pre-K-8)

A Good Night's Sleep for the New School Year (Science Daily)

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Photo by Jorge Quinteros