Examining sleep as a protective mechanism for executive functioning in children from low-income homes

ABSTRACT

For young children, sleep is essential for healthy development. Inadequate sleep can affect emotional, behavioural, cognitive, and health outcomes. Low family income and resources can put children at risk for poor sleep quality, impairing their subsequent cognitive abilities. The current study examined low socioeconomic status (SES) as a factor that increases vulnerability to the negative effects of poor sleep quality on young children’s executive functioning (EF). It was hypothesized that sleep quality would be more strongly associated with EF skills for children from low-SES homes than for children from high-SES home. Results indicated that low family income predicted poorer performances in working memory. In addition, sleep quality was associated with working memory, but only for children from low-SES homes. These results suggest that sleep quality may be especially important for EF skills for children from low-SES homes.

KEYWORDS:

• Executive functioning
• sleep
• socioeconomic status
• early childhood
• protective mechanism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sara E. Wetter is a Clinical Research Coordinator at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Her primary research interests focus on chronic health conditions and their effects on the internalizing behaviours of children and adolescents, specifically those of low socioeconomic status.

Dr Mary Fuhs is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Dayton. She studies cognitive development in young children with a focus on children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Dr Jackson A. Goodnight is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Dayton. Dr Goodnight’s research seeks to identify factors that can help explain individual differences in susceptibility to social influences (e.g. deviant peer) that promote the development of aggressive and delinquent behaviour in childhood and adolescence.