Children With Down Syndrome and Sleep
Browsing the net this evening, I found a company that sells dolls with the faces of Down Syndrome(DS) children. The company is called Downi Creation and their website is http://www.downicreations.com/. I didn’t know how I felt about this, so I sent the article to a Mexican friend of mine who has a son with Down Syndrome… I will let you know her answer.
Nevertheless, I realised that I had absolutely no idea about the sleep patterns of children wth DS, so decided to do further research. This is what I have found out. At SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Baltimore USA, Dr. Nicole N. Phillips presented a study that she performed comparing the sleep patterns of 38 children with DS with 38 normally developing children.
The results are as follows:
- Children with DS sleep poorly and have more fragmented sleep compared with normally developing children
- Children with DS may also have an altered sleep architecture characterized by less total sleep time, more stage 1 sleep, and less REM sleep
- Poor sleep quality and decreased amounts of REM sleep may further impair cognitive, behavioural, and physical growth. This is important to recognise as it is not only valid for children with DS, but for everybody.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Until tomorrow be wise and have fun
Information provided in this blog is to be used for educational purposes only. It should NOT be used as a substitute for seeking professional diagnosis or treatment of any disorder.

