Longitudinal Links Between Early Sleep Routine, Emotional Regulation, and Behavioral Outcomes in Head Start Children

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Consistent bedtime routines are essential for children’s behavioral competence. Extensive research suggests that children with disrupted sleep patterns are more vulnerable to multiple aspects of their developmental outcomes, such as emotional functioning (Berger et al., 2012; Vriend et al., 2013 ) and behavioral outcomes (El‐Sheikh et al., 2010; Gregory et al., 2012, Hale et al., 2011). However, less is known about the developmental trajectories of early sleep routines on behavioral outcomes among school children since most of these studies focus on concurrent associations between sleep routines or sleep duration and behavioral outcomes in early childhood. While prior research and neurobehavioral framework suggest that disruption in sleep patterns compromised adaptive emotional functioning (Berger et al., 2012; Walker, 2009) that may have long term implications in behavior outcomes among children (Alink et al., 2009; Cole et al., 1996), no study to date has examined the association among these constructs in a single model or by using a mediational framework. Therefore, this study advances the literature by examining emotion regulation at age 3 as a potential mediator in the longitudinal link between early sleep routines and behavioral outcomes among fifth-grade children using data from Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSRE). Specifying these links may be a particular concern with respect to at-risk children, as children from low socioeconomic and minority backgrounds are more likely to have unpredictable bedtime routines (e.g. a result of household overcrowding, noisiness, and instability), which may contribute to later disparities in sleep and potential negative effects in behavioral outcomes (Hale et al., 2011; Schlieber & Han, 2018).

Participants include a subsample (N = 2,977) of families participating in EHSRE, a predominantly low-income and minority sample. Structural equation modeling with bootstrapping was used to explore the longitudinal effects of bedtime routines on children’s internalizing and externalizing behavioral outcomes, and the mediating role of emotional regulation in those associations. The early bedtime routine index was created based on a sum of parents’ report on whether children (1) have regular bedtime during the week, (2) have a regular routine before sleep at night, and (3) have a reading bedtime routine from the 14, 24, and 36 months interviews. Emotional regulation was drawn from interviewer assessments based on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Bayley, 1993) at 36 months. Children’s behavioral outcomes were measured by the Child Behavior Checklist from parents at Grade 5 with two factors created out of six dimensions of the scale (see Figure 1). The list of control variables in the model include gender, emotional regulation at 14 months, maternal age, maternal depression at 14 months, and poverty ratio.

The results indicated that early bedtime routines significantly predict children’s emotional regulation at age 3. Also, emotional regulation served as the mediator between early bedtime routine and both the internalizing and externalizing behaviors. This study provided empirical evidence to support that parents’ engagement in establishing early bedtime routine has significant meanings for children’s emerging emotional regulation, which then has long-term implications on children’s behavioral outcomes.

Authors

• Sangita Pudasainee-Kapri, Rutgers University - Camden
  Presenting Author

• Ying Zhang, Clarkson University
  Non-Presenting Author