The role of sleep quality and quantity in moderating the effectiveness of medication in the treatment of children with ADHD.

The current study examined: (1) whether long-acting stimulant medication is effective in improving performance on measures of memory, attention, and academic productivity; and (2) whether sleep impacts the relationship between medication and performance. Participants were 21 newly diagnosed, medication-naïve children (mean age = 9.1 years) with ADHD, who participated in a 4-week blinded placebo-controlled randomized trial of long-acting MPH.

Concordance of actigraphy with polysomnography in children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

This study sought to: (1) compare actigraphy-derived estimated sleep variables to the same variables based on the gold-standard of sleep assessment, polysomnography; (2) examine whether the correlations between the measures differ between children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and typically developing children; and (3) determine whether these correlations are altered when children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are treated with medication. Participants (24 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; 24 typically developing), aged 6-12 years, completed a 1-week baseline assessment of typical sleep and daytime functioning. Following the baseline week, participants in the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder group completed a 4-week blinded randomized control trial of methylphenidate hydrochloride, including a 2-week placebo and 2-week methylphenidate hydrochloride treatment period.

The impact of sleep restriction on daytime movement in typically developing children.

The current study investigated the link between poor sleep and ADHD symptomatology. The effects of extending versus restricting sleep on subjective (questionnaires) and objective (actigraphy) measures of daytime movement were examined in 25 typically developing children aged 8-12 years. Subjective measures demonstrated an increase in ADHD symptomology following sleep restriction, with follow-up analyses indicating that findings were due to poorer attention, not changes in hyperactivity.

Validating the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire Against Polysomnography and Actigraphy in School-Aged Children.

Sleep is a vital physiological behavior in children's development, and as such it is important to be able to efficiently and accurately assess whether children display difficulties with sleep quality and quantity. The Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire [CSHQ; (1)] is one of the most commonly used assessment tools for pediatric sleep. However, this instrument has never been validated against the gold standard of sleep measurement [i.