Children and adolescents who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health also often struggle with their sleep. Indeed disrupted or altered sleep has been associated with most psychiatric disorders (Gregory & Sadeh, 2016). Although a range of sleep difficulties can co-occur with mental health problems, a common difficulty is insomnia. As such this guidance will primarily focus on difficulties with getting to sleep and staying asleep.
Sleep
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The costs of childhood ADHD extend into early adulthood
Earlier this year, Ebba Du Rietz and colleagues reported their findings from a large-scale, register-based study of the impact of childhood ADHD on healthcare use and costs in early adulthood.
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Depressed young people have lower vitamin B12 and vitamin D levels than their peers
Researchers in Turkey have studied serum folate, vitamin B12, homocysteine and 25-OH vitamin D levels in young people with and without depression.
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Conflicts of interest are under-reported in autism early intervention research
Researchers in the USA have studied, for the first time, the types, prevalence and effects of conflicts of interest (COI) in autism early intervention research.
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Poor sleep quality in adolescence might contribute to poor psychological functioning
Sleep problems affect up to 25% adolescents and have frequently been associated with psychopathology. Now, Marije Vermeulen and colleagues have investigated whether short and/or problematic sleep truly contributes to psychological functioning.
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Does DNA methylation link sleep disturbances to mental health problems?
Sleep disturbances have long been linked to mental health problems in children, but the underlying mechanisms of this relationship are unclear.
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Do we remember more when learning before bedtime?
Researchers at the University of York have found that children with poor reading comprehension have a lower capacity for vocabulary learning than children with good comprehension.
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Is neurocognitive functioning linked to a family history of a suicide attempt?
Jones et al. matched 501 participants (aged 8-21 years) who had a family history of a suicide attempt with ~3,000 participants with no such family history.
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In Conversation… Prof. Sam Cortese on ADHD, Coh-fit study
Professor Sam Cortese discusses ADHD, research in relation to clinical decision-making in child and adolescent psychiatry, the importance of systematic reviews, and his work on the European ADHD Guidelines Group and its work on ADHD management during the covid-19 pandemic. Includes transcription, and links.
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In Conversation… Assistant Professor Dr. Dienke Bos on Neuroimaging
Dr. Bos looks at the typical development of behavioural control and how this is represented naturally, magnetic resonance imaging to monitor brain changes in relation to childhood development, and where the evidence is that early intervention can slow or reverse damage. Includes transcription, and links.
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Variable sleep schedules might put preschoolers at risk of academic difficulties
New data suggest that internalizing problems are associated with sleep variability and that cognitive ability is associated with sleep timing.
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