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April 29, 2002
Teen Sleep Deprivation May Affect Behavior, Academics
EVANSTON, Ill. — Research has clarified what most parents
already know about the sleep patterns of adolescents — they
seem to have an unlimited capacity to sleep late on weekends. In
a study presented April 18 at the Annual Meeting of the American
Academy of Neurology, Northwestern University researchers propose
that teenagers need more sleep than they may be getting, and that
sleeping late on weekends may be a result of relative sleep deprivation
during the week.
"Previous research has indicated that sleep-wake habits of
teenagers vary from those of adults and younger children, and that
many adolescents experience chronic partial sleep deprivation,"
said study author Kathryn Reid, a research assistant professor at
Northwestern’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology. "We
found that teenagers sleep, on average, 8.5 hours during the week
and more than 9.5 hours on weekends."
Reid and colleagues studied 729 young people aged 12 to 17, who
were admitted to the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center.
They found that, while onset of sleep/waking times were later among
older teens, a longer duration was consistent among all subjects
compared to previous data. Nearly half of the study subjects reported
significant daytime sleepiness.
Other research has suggested that in this age group, sleep deprivation
may play a role in lower grades and with behavioral problems. Changing
school start times to later has been shown to improve attendance
in this age group. The later wake times of the older teenagers in
the current study further suggests that there may benefit to starting
school later. However, this is a complex issue that needs to be
studied further.
It is likely that further analysis of sleep data from this study
may reveal actual relationships between sleep times and other measures
of mental health, academic performance and behavior.
The study was sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health.
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