Evaluating clinic based Sleep interventions for disabled children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating the effectiveness of clinic based sleep interventions for the management of sleep settling and sleep disturbances in children with Learning Disabilities.
IRAS ID
154361
Contact name
Chris Catherall
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 4 days
Research summary
The project will evaluate the efficacy of delivering 2 behavioural approaches to manage sleep settling and sleep distruption in children with disabilities through a clinic based intervention.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria will apply. The project will study 8 families, with 4 recieving sleep restriction interventions and 4 recieving scheduled awakening interventions, through assessment, recordings and the family delivering the interventions.
A two week sleep diary would be kept by the family with the aid of Actigraphy to provide valid data. Parents will be asked to complete a quality of life inventory pre and post intervention. These measures will provide statistical significance to the proposed interventions and their outcomes in terms of managing sleep and impact on family.Parents are often offered pharmacological approaches as first line standalone treatment (Grail, Sears and Allard, 2004) despite cognitive and behavioural interventions being reported to be highly effective in managing sleep problems in typically developing children (Hall,1997). The same authour reports that these approaches are also indicated for use in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
The above treatments re currently offered to parents/carers as standard practice during and following attendance at sleep clinics.
REC name
Wales REC 5
REC reference
15/WA/0061
Date of REC Opinion
23 Feb 2015
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion