Sleep disturbances, behavioural problems and adaptive skills in children with Down’s syndrome

ABSTRACT

The study was performed in St. Petersburg in 2015 and comprised 34 children with diagnosed Down’s syndrome (DS) aged 9–15 (mean 11) years (17 boys, 17 girls) who attended special schools. Control group was made up of 34 clinically healthy normal intelligence schoolchildren matched for age, sex and geographical distribution. The mothers were requested to fill in the Child Sleep Habit Questionnaire (CSHQ). The teachers were approached with the Achenbach Child Behaviour Check List and the Diagnostic Adaptive Behaviour Scale (DABS). Children with DS had significantly higher scores on reported sleep problems. The most prominent behavioural disturbance was on DSM-oriented attention-deficit/hyperactivity problems scale. DS children presented with lower scores on all DABS subscales and total DABS score. The values of IQ and the total sleep disturbance score were significant predictors of attention-deficit/hyperactivity problems, and the values of IQ and of the attention-deficit/hyperactivity were significant predictors of adaptive skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Adaptive skills
• behaviour
• Down’s syndrome
• sleep

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank undergraduate students of the Institute of Special Education and Special Psychology of the Raoul Wallenberg International University for Family and Child for their help in collecting raw data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Igor A. Kelmanson was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1962 and graduated from the Leningrad Paediatric Medical Institute in 1985 with distinction. From 1985 through 2007 he was employed at the Leningrad Paediatric Medical Institute (later St. Petersburg State Paediatric Medical Academy), first as a postgraduate trainee, later on as an Assistant Professor, an Associate Professor and a Professor of Paediatrics. Since 2007 he has been employed as a Professor of Paediatrics at the Institute of Special Education and Special Psychology of the Raoul Wallenberg International University for Family and Child (St. Petersburg). He is w inner of the European Academy Award for the Young Scientists of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (1996) and the author of more than 200 publications, including 12 monographs and textbooks.