A new research from the University of York underlines the importance of deep sleep as it found that the lack of it could lead to problems in language learning. The study suggests that the lack of sleep among children is more common when they have been diagnosed with autism. The study also shows that it's the same case with those who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia.
A research from the University of York's Sleep Language and Memory (SLAM) claims that deep sleep is significantly important in language learning, IFL Science reported. Having the appropriate amount of sleep can strengthen the memories for newly learned words among adults and children. Children who get enough deep sleep experience bigger improvements in remembering new words after they sleep.
Getting enough sleep helps embed those new words in the mental dictionary of people's brains. In their experiment, children were made to learn new words. There are significant improvements in the children's vocabulary learning after sleeping compared to spending their time awake. SLAM suggests reading bedtime stories to children before sleeping to help them enhance their vocabulary.
Children who have sleep problems are common on those who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Some 86 percent of children suffering ASD have sleep difficulties, which means sleeplessness damages the lives of these children. Sleep apnea, which is a sleeping issue where the breathing briefly stops, can lower the amount of grey matter in the brain, Medical News Today reported.
Sleep apnea, which is suffered by 5 percent of children, is caused by the obstruction of airways due to the muscles in the throat. When the throat contracts, the brain are warned that danger is coming, this wakes the person up.
Researchers suspect sleep difficulty could lead to the worsening of ASD among children suffering this condition. This could lead to delays in children's early language acquisition. This research could help children prevent language learning problems at their young age.
