A study of the sleep status of preschool children with a coordination development disorder

Li DING; Haifeng LI; Hui WANG; Wencong RUAN

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To investigate the sleep status of preschool children with a coordination development disorder (DCD).

Methods:

Implementing stratified cluster sampling, 38, 900 questionnaires were distributed in 1000 classes of 200 kindergartens randomly selected in 11 prefecture-level cities of China′s Zhejiang Province. A total of 35, 464 valid responses were returned. On the basis of the responses, 2251 of the children were of (6.35%) were deemed DCD-positive, while the rest formed a DCD-negative group. The Children′s Family Social Environment and Sleep Health Questionnaire (1-6 years old) and the children′s sleep habits questionnaire were employed to investigate their sleep status.

Results:

①Regular sleeping time and duration, and falling asleep within 20 minutes were significantly less common in the DCD-positive group. In the negative group, shifting sleep place at night, finding it hard to sleep in strange environments, waking up ≥2 times a night, being awoken by others in the morning, difficulty in waking up and getting up in the morning, and bad mood after waking were significantly less frequent. ②In addition to delayed bedtime, the incidence of refusal to go to bed, fear of sleeping in the dark or alone, bedwetting, restless sleep, sleepwalking, talking in sleep, being awakened by nightmares, teeth grinding, loud snoring, apnea, dyspnea, crying and sweating after waking up at night, and insufficient sleep were all significantly higher in the DCD-positive group. ③The DCD-positive group also reported more sleeping in the daytime on weekends, more time on playing electronic products along with shorter sleep duration at night. There was, however, no significant difference between the two groups in sleep duration on school days and all day on weekends.

Conclusion:

Preschool children with a DCD have different sleep habits from those developing normally. They are more likely to suffer from sleep problems which affect their sleep duration.