Scores were adjusted for maternal education and race/ethnicity, family income, child age and sex, and child cognitive scores on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). The researchers also adjusted for genetic and/or neurologic diagnoses, including Down syndrome, fragile X, Rett syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and neurofibromatosis.
Autistic children tended to have lower MSEL scores than the other children. Both the autistic children and those with other developmental disorders and delays were more likely than those in the general population to have neurologic or genetic conditions.
Based on a cutoff score of 48, autistic children had more than double the odds of sleep problems, compared with children in the general population (adjusted odds ratio, 2.37; P = .001) and children with other developmental delays (aOR, 2.12; P = .001).
With a cutoff of 41, ASD children’s odds of sleep problems were 1.45 times greater than the general population (P = .023) and 1.75 times greater than those with developmental delays (P = .001).
But children with developmental delays who displayed autistic characteristics did not have not significantly different prevalence of sleep problems than children with ASD had.
“The phenotypic overlay between children with ASD and children with developmental delay with ASD [characteristics] may explain the similarities in sleep disturbance among these two groups,” the authors wrote. Both groups have “higher rates of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, self-injurious behavior, ADHD symptoms, and developmental and communication impairments” than children with developmental delays without autistic characteristics.
The research was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Colorado Clinical and Translational Science Award. Dr Reynolds consults for Ovid Therapeutics regarding evaluation of sleep severity and improvement in clinical trials. No other authors had disclosures.
SOURCE: Reynolds AM et al. Pediatrics. 2019 Feb. 11. doi: 10.1542/peds.2018-0492.