A new study found that irregular bedtimes affect a child's intelligence resulting in lower scores in math, reading and IQ tests
Late nights and irregular bedtimes not only affect a child's health but also his intelligence, found researchers from University College, London.
The study was conducted to see if the time a child goes to bed each night affects his mental abilities in anyway. Researchers also wanted to determine if the results of the study were cumulative or whether a certain period in a child's life was crucial.
Researchers found that most children had irregular bedtimes around the age of 3. One in every five 3-year-old was found to have a variable sleeping time. By the time the child is seven, he/she has more or less a set bedtime, mostly between 7:30pm and 8:30 pm. Researchers also noted that children, who usually went to bed at irregular times or past 9:00 pm, came from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds.
For the study, researchers analyzed data on bedtimes and test scores of 11,178 7-year-old children born between September 2000 and January 2002, who participated in the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study. Mothers were asked to fill questionnaires about their child's sleeping habits at the age of 3, 5 and 7. The children were then tested on their IQ, math and reading abilities.
Researchers found that children who had irregular bedtimes at the age of 3 scored lower in all three tests than children who went to sleep at regular times at this age. However, at the age of 5, irregular bedtimes led to girls scoring less in reading while boys scored less in math.
Girls who had irregular bedtimes at age of 3 showed significantly lower scores on all three tests while boys showed similar results if they had irregular betimes in any two of the age groups.
"Sleep is the price we pay for plasticity on the prior day and the investment needed to allow learning fresh the next day," Counsel and Heal quoted researchers as saying.
"Early child development has profound influences on health and wellbeing across the life course. Therefore, reduced or disrupted sleep, especially if it occurs at key times in development, could have important impacts on health throughout life," Daily Mail quoted lead author Professor Yvonne Kelly as saying.
The findings were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
