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Researchers identify link between sleep-disordered breathing, academic performance

Children with sleep-disordered breathing may have difficulty in academic subjects such as language arts, math and science, according to results of a meta-analysis.

Barbara Galland, PhD, of the department of women’s and children’s health at Dunedin School of Medicine at University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and colleagues used the PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL and PsycINFO databases to identify 16 studies that analyzed the relationship between sleep-disordered breathing and academic performance.

Their analysis showed significant associations between children with sleep-disordered breathing and academic performance in specific core domains such as math (effect size = –0.33), language arts (effect size = –0.31) and science (effect size = –0.29).

They also observed a significant association between children with sleep-disordered breathing and unsatisfactory progress and/or learning problems (effect size = –0.23).

However, Galland and colleagues noted there was not a significant association with sleep-disordered breathing and general school performance.

The researchers reported heterogeneity in studies analyzing language arts (I² = 74%) and math (I² = 55%), but not for studies that analyzed science or unsatisfactory progress/learning problems.

“Variable definitions of both academic performance and [sleep-disordered breathing] likely contributed to the heterogeneity among published investigations,” Galland and colleagues wrote. “Clear links between sleep-disordered breathing and poorer academic performance in school-age children are demonstrated. [Effect size] statistics were in the small-to-medium range, but nevertheless the findings serve to highlight to parents, teachers and clinicians that sleep-disordered breathing in children may contribute to academic difficulties some children face.” – by Jeff Craven

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