Clipping of news on Brazilian Culture, Law and Citizenship
07/09/2013
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
Sleeping late or at different times affects activities such as reading and mathematical thinking
Children who have a habit of sleeping late or do not have routine to go to bed can reduce brain performance, according to a study from the UK with more than 11 000 children under 7 years. Those who had no time to sleep or going to bed after 21h had the worst test scores in reading and mathematics.
Lack of sleep can disrupt the natural rhythm of the body and affect how the brain learns new information, according to the authors. They gathered information from children under 3, 5 and 7 years later to assess their learning and the results could be related to sleep habits.
Irregular bedtime was more common at the age of three years, reaching 20% of children in this age group. At 7, more than half of the children had regular sleeping schedule, which varied between 20h30m and 19h30m.
In general, children who have never had regular bedtime fared worse than their colleagues on the results of tests in reading, mathematics and even spatial perception. The impact was most obvious among girls than boys and may be cumulative.
The researchers argue that the inconsistent sleep could be a reflection of family problems, and that this, instead of interrupted sleep, could be reflecting on children's outcomes.
- We try to take everything into account - told the BBC the study coordinator, Amanda Sacker, University College London.
Children who slept worse were of socially disadvantaged and watched more TV. After balancing these factors, the relationship between poorer mental performance and poor quality of sleep remained. The results were published in "Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health."
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Source: The Globe - Online
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This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.