by Piper Wilson

Created on: August 07, 2007   Last Updated: November 19, 2010

Depending on their age, a child spends between one third and one half of their lives sleeping. As anyone who has trouble sleeping can attest, life with sleep can be good while life without sleep can be miserable.  Lack of sleep can hamper cognitive functions, reduce brain-processing capacity and can make people, especially children, irritable and cranky. Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or

ADHD are particularly vulnerable to problems associated with sleep loss.

Researchers have suspected for years that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms are linked with sleep problems. The results of a revolutionary study that lends further credence to this theory were published in the August 1, 2008 edition of the journal SLEEP.

Surprisingly, children who take Ritalin to manage their ADHD symptoms sleep better.

The study was conducted by Ridha Joober, MD, and Reut Gruber, PhD, of Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The team found that "children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and whose sleep efficiency is poor, experience significant improvement on some measures of the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) if they are treated with Ritalin."

For the study, children were given a placebo for one week, and then researchers calculated the mean sleep efficiency score for each child. Those children with scores above the mean sleep efficiency score were placed in a "Good Sleep Group" while the other children were place in the "Poor Sleep Group." Then, at home, parents monitored the sleep of each child for two weeks using actigraphy, completing nightly sleep logs and a filling out a sleep questionnaire. Later, in the lab, researchers administered The Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT) was used to assess vigilance.

"Children with low sleep efficiency might improve performance following the administration of [Ritalin] as it increases their arousal level to a moderate level, which is presumed to facilitate vigilance performance," wrote Joober and Gruber. "To our knowledge, this is the first study in which the [Ritalin] response in children with ADHD has compared poor and good sleepers using an objective neuropsychological test and a validated clinical scale as the outcome measures. Future studies looking at the association between the impact of [Ritalin], basal characteristics of sleep and the efficiency of different attentional systems in children with ADHD are needed to further examine the association between sleep and neurobehavioral functioning in ADHD."

Making sure children get enough sleep is important for all children, but it is especially crucial for children with ADHD. Whether you are opposed to medication for your child, considering it, or are using Ritalin or another medication, ensuring your child gets enough rest is one of the best things you can do for them. If you have already decided to treat your child with medication, this sleep study is one more thing that you have to reassure you about your decision.

* Actigraphy is a method of activity and sleep study achieved by mounting a small actigraph unit on a patient for an extended period. The unit itself typically includes a small accelerometer and continually records the movements it undergoes. When the data is later read to a computer it can be analyzed and used in the study of circadian rhythm and wake-sleep patterns.

Information about Children's Sleep for Parents and Teachers: Common Sleep Disorders Linked to ADHD

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