Citation

Sadikova E, Soland J, Menezes M, Mazurek M. Autism 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, National Autistic Society, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/13623613241235880

PMID

38807297

Abstract

Autistic children are more likely to have sleep difficulties and to experience adverse childhood experiences. Adverse childhood experiences can include parental divorce, bullying, or witnessing violence. We also know that children in families who are resilient (e.g. families who are connected, work together, and help each other) are less impacted by adverse childhood experiences. Our study examined whether there was a relationship between adverse childhood experiences and sleep duration in autistic children. We also wanted to find out whether family resilience protects from the negative impact of adverse childhood experiences on sleep duration. We used data from 3247 parent surveys about their children that we got from the National Survey of Children's Health. We found that children with adverse childhood experiences are more likely to get less sleep. We also found that children with resilient families were more likely to get more sleep. Our results show that family resilience helps weaken the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and sleep, so it is important to help families build resilience.

Language: en

Keywords

sleep; autism spectrum disorders; family functioning and support