Sleep disturbance and insomnia in children: The relationships between children’s sleeping habits, pre-sleep arousal and sleep-related attentional bias

Although sleep disturbances are commonly reported among children, little is understood about the processes associated with childhood insomnia. Adult models of insomnia have suggested that cognitive arousal and sleep-related attentional bias are two processes associated with insomnia. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between children’s sleeping habits, pre-sleep arousal and sleep-related attentional bias. Parents of children, aged 7-11, completed the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire, and children completed the Pre-sleep Arousal Scale, and a visual-dot-probe task in order to investigate whether children reported to have insomnia and children with more broadly defined ‘sleep disturbance’ demonstrate greater sleep-related attentional bias and report greater cognitive than somatic arousal than children without sleep disturbance. It was found that children with sleep disturbance demonstrated greater sleep-related attentional bias than children without sleep disturbance; there was no significant difference between the attentional bias scores of children with and without insomnia; children with both high sleep disturbance and insomnia reported greater cognitive than somatic arousal; there was no significant differences between the reporting of cognitive arousal by children with and without sleep disturbances; and that there was no association between attentional bias and cognitive arousal scores. Further research is needed with a clinical population