Poster #153 - The Role of Parenting on Preschoolers’ Sleep Problems

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

When compared to typically developing children (TD), children with ADHD have significantly worse sleep functioning (e.g., bedtime resistance, sleep-onset difficulties, night waking). Stimulant medication and behavioral parent training (BPT) are considered the gold standard treatments for ADHD. Stimulant medication can negatively affect children’s sleep functioning. However, the same sleep difficulties occur among children with ADHD who are not taking stimulant medication. Significantly less work has examined the effects of BPT on sleep. Our group has recently published the effectiveness of a School Readiness Parenting Program (SRPP), part of the Summer Treatment Program for Pre-kindergarteners (STP-PreK), on parenting outcomes (Graziano et al., 2017). A unique aspect of the SRPP is the inclusion of a treatment session focused on sleep hygiene. Within a preschool sample, the goals of the current study were to examine a) the extent to which children who participated in the STP-PreK improved their sleep functioning, and b) the impact of parenting on such sleep functioning.
Participants included 83 children (Mage = 4.97, 82% Male, 83% Hispanic/Latino) with at-risk or clinically elevated symptoms of ADHD (76% diagnosed) who participated in the 8-week STP-PreK. Parents reported on parenting practices (Alabama Parenting Questionnaire; APQ; Frick, 1991) and their children’s sleep problems (Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire; CSHQ; Owens et al., 2011) pre and post-treatment.
Repeated measure analyses demonstrated that children improved in sleep habit problems (d = .85), and night wakings (d = .76) from pre-treatment to post-treatment. Furthermore, regression analyses, controlling for pre-treatment levels, showed that positive parenting at post-treatment was significantly associated with less sleep habit problems (β = -.28) while negative parenting changes were associated with changes in sleep habit problems (β = .36) and lower overall total number of sleep minutes (β = -.26). These results suggest that for children with ADHD, behavior modification and BPT can improve sleep outcomes with parenting playing a vital role in such improvements.

Authors

• Taylor Landis, Florida International University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Coto, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie Hart, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paulo Graziano, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author