RACHEL JOHNSON
Perspectives Assistant
Flipping through the calendar reminded me of the burden that will soon be imposed on all of the students at Pepperdine— final exams. Finals week brings endless hours of cramming, and it reduces how much we will be able to sleep. Sure, during the rest of the semester Pepperdine students wander aimlessly to class, daydreaming of a nap soon to come. It seems, though, it is only during finals week that we realize the importance of sleep.
Sleep isn’t only important for college students, the ability to go out during week nights can be important and rigorous class schedules impact the amount of time we get to rest. And it doesn’t just impact average students, either. Sleep deprivation has consequences for students with learning disabilities.
A study conducted by psychologist Gahan Fallone at Brown Medical School was published Nov. 10. In it, healthy 12-year-old children who had no evidence of learning- or sleep-related disorders were used as subjects. Among the problems the children faced when deprived of sleep was difficulty paying attention. This raised the question of whether sleep deprivation could be worse for those with learning disorders, such as attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder.
This study is just a twist on what experts have been saying for years, however. Many report that Americans of all ages have not been getting enough rest. Not getting enough sleep has been linked to a variety of problems, ranging from car crashes as drivers drift off to stilted creativity and imagination.
What has been difficult to prove is exactly how sleep correlates with school performance. Fallone’s study was developed in an attempt to discover how many hours of shut-eye students need to allow them to be successful.
The study was conducted by testing whether teachers could detect problems with attention and learning after students stayed up late, even if the teachers had no idea how much sleep their pupils actually got. Fallone and his group used 74, 6- to 12-year-olds from Rhode Island and Massachusetts as their subjects in the three-week study.
The results were as the researchers expected: Teachers reported more academic problems during the week of sleep deprivation.
Even more specific results were found as well. Fallone, who now works at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Mo., reported that students who got eight hours of sleep a night or less had the most problems paying attention, were the most forgetful and had the most trouble learning new lessons.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is still determining results relating to students with learning disabilities. But the results found that students with disabilities may have greater implications.
Because many children are diagnosed with attention-deficit disorders, lack of sleep may further inhibit their learning capabilities. If students without attention issues function more poorly without a good night’s sleep, children who do have these problems will most likely face more difficulties in their studies if they do not get enough rest.
Clearly, more research is needed on the topic. It is imperative for parents of children with disabilities to know if sleep deprivation will negatively impact their learning abilities. Because the amount of sleep one gets is a controllable factor, discovering if it can further prohibit disabled children from learning can aid in gearing them toward successful study habits, and eventually enable them to become better students.
11-17-2005