Both chil­dren and adults need a good night sleep to func­tion at their best. A recent study, sum­ma­rized here, sug­gests that this is true for babies too: How much sleep a 12 month old baby gets can influ­ence the devel­op­ment of his/her exec­u­tive func­tions. Exec­u­tive func­tions, sup­ported by the frontal lobes of the brain, are often con­sid­ered as indi­ca­tors of children’s like­li­hood of suc­ceed­ing in school. They involve decision-making, problem-solving, plan­ning, inhibit­ing, as well as other high-level func­tions (social behav­ior, emo­tional con­trol, work­ing mem­ory, etc.).

Researchers asked par­ents to com­plete three-day sleep jour­nals when their infants were 12 and 18 months.[…] three vari­ables were iden­ti­fied: total hours of sleep, per­cent­age of total sleep occur­ring between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. and sleep fragmentation.

When the chil­dren reached 18 and 26 months of age, researchers gave the tod­dlers a bat­tery of tests to assess their exec­u­tive func­tions and gen­eral cog­ni­tive ability.

Chil­dren with a higher per­cent­age of sleep dur­ing the night were fur­ther along in the devel­op­ment of their exec­u­tive functioning

Com­ments: Inter­est­ing results! Let’s note though that the study is report­ing cor­re­la­tions. Although the authors report that the results held “above fam­ily socioe­co­nomic sta­tus, prior men­tal devel­op­ment and con­cur­rent ver­bal abil­ity” the pos­si­bil­ity that a fac­tor other than sleep may have been influ­enc­ing the devel­op­ment of exec­u­tive func­tions in these chil­dren can­not be com­pletely ruled out. The direc­tion of a cor­re­la­tion is never clear either: It could be that chil­dren with higher exec­u­tive func­tions (in par­tic­u­lar impulse con­trol) are bet­ter able to fall asleep and thus get more sleep than chil­dren with lower exec­u­tive functions.

Related arti­cle: Top 10 Q&A about Child’s Brain Devel­op­ment

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