Sleep disruption as a correlate to cognitive and adaptive behavior problems in autism spectrum disorders Matthew A. Taylor a , Kimberly A. Schreck a, *, James A. Mulick b a 777 W. Harrisburg Pike, W311 Olmsted Building, Middletown, PA 17036, USA b The Ohio State University, Nationwide Children’s Hospital Developmental Assessment Program, 187 West Schrock Road, Westerville, OH 43081, USA 1. Introduction In 1964, 17-year-old Robert Gardner broke the world record for sleep deprivation by staying awake for 264 h without the aid of stimulants (Ross, 1965). This lack of sleep greatly impaired Mr. Gardner’s ability to function. Gardner began to have trouble focusing his eyes by the second day of wakefulness. On day three, he experienced mood changes, nausea, and difficulty saying tongue twisters. In addition to his irritability, on the fourth day, Gardner experienced cognitive problems including difficulty concentrating and lapses in memory. Hallucinations and delusions followed, including mistaking a street sign for a person and believing that he was a famous football player being berated by fans. Throughout the rest of his marathon period of wakefulness, Gardner continued to experience these symptoms in addition to fragmented thinking, slurred speech, and blurred vision. Similarly, sleep disruption has been shown to impair typically developing (TD) children’s and adolescents’ day-time functioning. Schreck (2010) reviewed the diagnostic relationships of sleep problems to day-time behavior for children and adolescents finding significant relationships. Research has supported Schreck’s (2010) review, indicating that young children who sleep fewer hours per night continually experience more difficulty with perceptual tasks and cognitive ability measures Research in Developmental Disabilities 33 (2012) 1408–1417 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 1 February 2012 Accepted 6 March 2012 Available online 21 April 2012 Keywords: Autism Sleep Adaptive behavior Intelligence Sleep disorders A B S T R A C T Sleep problems associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been well documented, but less is known about the effects of sleep problems on day-time cognitive and adaptive performance in this population. Children diagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) (N = 335) from 1 to 10 years of age (M = 5.5 years) were evaluated for the relationships of Behavioral Evaluation of Disorders of Sleep (BEDS; Schreck, 1998) scores to measures of intelligence and adaptive behavior. Results suggested that children who slept fewer hours per night had lower overall intelligence, verbal skills, overall adaptive functioning, daily living skills, socialization skills, and motor development. Children who slept fewer hours at night with waking during the night had more communication problems. Breathing related sleep problems and fewer hours of sleep related most often to problems with perceptual tasks. The results indicate that quality of sleep – especially sleep duration – may be related to problems with day-time cognitive and adaptive functioning in children with autism and PDD-NOS. However, future research must be conducted to further understand these relationships. ß 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, W311 Olmsted Building, Middletown, PA 17057-4898, USA. Tel.: +1 717 948 6048. E-mail addresses: mat5386@psu.edu (M.A. Taylor), kas24@psu.edu (K.A. Schreck), mulick.1@osu.edu (J.A. Mulick). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Research in Developmental Disabilities 0891-4222/$ – see front matter ß 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.03.013