Barbara E. Fisher

A 22-item Likert-type rating scale for parents was developed for screening a broad range of specific sleep-related behaviors of elementary school children. The prevalence of these behaviors was reported by parents for boys (n = 459) and girls (n = 411) in three age groups, less than 8.5 yr., between 8.5 and 11.5 yr., and greater than 11.5 yr. For all age groups, the most prevalent behaviors were restlessness, waking up at night, pleasant dreams, getting up to go to the bathroom, talking while asleep, and complaints about not being able to sleep, while the least frequent were rhythmical movements and crying while asleep. The self-reports suggest that many of the behaviors are underestimated in the literature. Some sex and age differences were found, but the number of siblings, birth order, change in family structure, and educational status of father and mother were unrelated to the sleep variables. Test-retest reliabilities of self-reports by these parents to individual items were adequate.

Epidemiological, behavioral and etiological variables related to sleep disturbances were investigated in a survey of 1695 children in Grades 1 to 12 from 11 randomly selected schools. Sleep-walking, nightmares and sleep-talking were strongly associated with each other as well as to a family history of sleep-walking. Enuresis, however, was not related to the other sleep variables. Socioeconomic status of father was weakly related to enuresis and sleep-talking but not to sleep-walking or nightmares. Gender was not related to any of the sleep disturbances. The behavioral variables, physical activity, attention, emotional excitability, and feelings easily hurt showed a small association with the sleep disturbances. Parents most frequently attributed causes of sleep-walking and nightmares to over-tiredness and over-excitement. As well, parents' comments indicated that they tend to associate specific events such as illness or more often, frightening TV content with nightmares, but not sleep-walking.