The Effect Of Sleep Problems On Problem Behaviors Of Children With Intellectual Disabilities: The Role Of Executive Function

Sleep is a very important physiological activity of human beings,which plays especially critical role in children's body growth,immune function,psychological development.Numerous researches reported children's Sleep Problems are frequently occurring.Problem Behavior could make a lot of trouble for family,school and society,for example,it would disrupt normal teaching order.Obviously it does harm to children's physical and mental health.Executive Function are influenced by many factors,which also can affect many factors,as an important cognitive ability.Children with intellectual disability have different degrees of executive function defects.Most researches study the relationships of sleep problem and executive function,sleep problem and problem behavior,executive function and problem behavior.But the relationship between these three,especially in children with intellectual disability,is almost blank.This study selected 100 children with intellectual disability in grade 1-9 from three special schools in Shanghai.It used six experiments to measure executive function,digit span tasks and verbal span tasks for working memory,DC CS and hand game for cognitive flexibility,windows task and stroop task for inhibitory control.It also used the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire(CSHQ)and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire(SDQ)to explore children's sleep problem and problem behavior.The study tries to discuss the relationship between these three factors,in order to provide theoretical guidance for the children's cognitive research and educational practice.The conclusions of this study are as follows:1.The total incidence rate of sleep problems in children with intellectual disability was 59%,and in children with general intellectual disability was 53.95%,in autism children was 80%,in children with down syndrome was 66.67%.2.The average score of bedtime resistance and sleep anxiety of children with intellectual disability reduced with age.The scores of sleep anxiety in the high father's education level were significantly higher than those in the medium father's education level.There was no significant difference in scores of sleep problems among different types of intellectual disability.3.As for problem behavior,the scores of peer problems of children with intellectual disability reduced with ages.The scores of in high parental education level were significantly higher than those in the low parental education level.The scores of children with general intellectual disability were significantly lower than autism children.4.There were significant differences in executive function between different ages.The average score of the executive function of children with intellectual disability increased with age.5.There were significant correlations between sleep problems,executive function and problem behavior of children with intellectual disability.6.The sleep problems can directly affect the problem behavior of children with intellectual disability,and also can indirectly affect the problem behaviors through executive function.The executive function plays a mediating role in it,and the mediating effect is about 11.36%.It indicates that children with mental retardation have some difficulties in sleeping,and it have an serious impact on their own improvement and development.Therefore,we should pay attention to this problem and conduct intervention.