How Sleep Deprivation Mimics ADHD

When I was a grade one teacher, I was constantly shocked at how late many of my students went to bed. Many of them actually went to sleep at around the same time I did.

I wasn’t a sleep expert then, but I remember thinking that kids must need more sleep than that!

I also noticed that the ones who reported staying up the latest were the ones I had the most trouble with throughout the day. They tended to be impulsive, moody, and had a harder time staying on task.

If you were to bring your child to a psychologist in the 1990s, and told him that your child was displaying these symptoms, there’s a good chance he’d have been diagnosed with ADHD.

The truth is, you might still get the same diagnosis today. ADHD affects a lot of children, but the similarities I found between the habits of sleep-deprived kids in my classroom and the symptoms of ADHD had me wondering, “Could these behaviours be the result of a lack of sleep?”

As it turns out, the parallels in symptoms between the two are even more specific than I had imagined. So much so, in fact, that many children are still being diagnosed with ADHD when, in fact, their issue is a lack of proper sleep.

A 2006 study in Pediatrics looked at a group of children who were having their tonsils removed in order to treat breathing problems during sleep. Out of the 78 children who were undergoing the surgery, 28 percent of them had been diagnosed with ADHD. (For comparison, The American Psychiatric Association says that 5 percent of American children have ADHD.)

A year after the surgery, 11 of the 22 children no longer met the criteria for having ADHD.

Put simply,, half of the children who had been professionally diagnosed with ADHD no longer displayed symptoms after they started getting a proper night’s sleep.

A 2013 article in the New York Times, entitled “Diagnosing the Wrong Deficit,” pointed me to this study, along with some other fascinating information about the long-term effects of sleep deprivation in both children and adults.

This isn’t meant to be a criticism of modern child psychology by any means. After all, diagnosing a sleeping disorder requires hours of costly observation and analysis, whereas ADHD can be diagnosed (correctly or incorrectly) through a single visit to a psychologist’s office.

The fact is, there’s an astounding amount of similarity between the symptoms, and many children with ADHD do experience trouble sleeping through the night. But I think the tendency these days when someone hears words like hyperactive, unfocused and irritable, is to snap to the familiar diagnosis without necessarily looking deeper to check for alternative issues.

Again, I’m not trying to second-guess the medical community here, but if your child is experiencing the typical symptoms of ADHD, I strongly recommend that you speak with your doctor about the possibility that it might be due to poor sleep habits before you start with medication and psychoanalysis.

There’s certainly no harm in asking, and you might be doing your child, and yourself, a world of good.

If your child is having a hard time sleeping through the night, try my Sleep Sense Program. It’s guaranteed to get your child onto a regular, restful sleep schedule. What have you got to lose?

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Certified Sleep Sense Consultant Tip

“Introducing some sort of a lovey (soft blanket or stuffy) helps your child transition from awake times to sleep times. The lovey can provide comfort to your child while they fall asleep independently.

​If your child has not formed an attachment to a favourite object, you can help foster an attachment by providing a lovey at sleep times.”

Treena Zelyck
Sleep Consultant
www.babystepstosleep.com
zzz@babystepstosleep.com
306-891-8281

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