SLEEP PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISTIC SPECTRUM DISORDER

Abstract

Sleep is an essential part of life for the child's health and functioning. The average person spends about a third of our life sleeping. To the disruption of the natural flow of sleep may occur as a result of impaired health status of the child, due to changes in the environment, especially the well-established habits in the family or due to the effects of stress. Difficulty sleeping, to act on the entire children's development and a stable adjustment, and its progress. Most of these difficulties is transient and occur as a reaction to some of the changes in the environment, and routines and slowly pass by with the disappearance of their causes. As the characteristics of autistic spectrum disorders in addition to the more common, often cited problems with sleep and behavior. The aim of this study was to determine which specific problems of sleep are the most prevalent. The study included 57 children with autistic spectrum disorder attending the Institution for special children education “Mjedenica” and Center „Vladimir Nazor“ in Sarajevo, Institution for the education of persons with disturbances in mental and physical development in Tuzla and Center „Los Rosales“ in Mostar. For the assessment of problems in bed was used Children´s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ Owens et al. 2000). The obtained results show that 70.2% of children have trouble sleeping while 29.8% have no or rarely have. It can also be concluded that children have the most problems with the resistance before going to sleep, a sleep-over time, the duration of sleep, fear of sleep and sleeping during the day.