All rights reserved. Introduction With the financial support of the Portsmouth Down Syndrome Trust, based at the Sarah Duffen Centre in Portsmouth, research has been carried out in the last few years on the sleep problems of children with Down syndrome and the associations between these problems, learning, behaviour and family factors. The children studied were generally of school age and attending either mainstream or special schools. The research programme, which has involved a number of novel approaches to these neglected problems, has raised various issues which call for further investigation but the main findings already have implications for the care by both professionals and parents of children with Down syndrome. This account describes in general terms such findings and implications.
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The occurrence of sleep problems Sleep problems are known to be very common in the general population at all ages, but they are particularly prominent in children with a learning disability, somewhat in relation to the degree of disability. Often they are more severe and persistent in children with a learning disability than in other children and, unfortunately, frequently not treated appropriately, if at all. These problems were found to be very common in both of the groups of children with a learning disability, although somewhat less so in the children with Down syndrome. This distinctive profile is in keeping with the evidence that many children with Down syndrome are prone to obstruction of their upper airway during sleep caused by a number of possible anatomical factors. Other sleep problems shared by the children with Down syndrome with the other groups studied included sleep talking, teeth grinding and bedwetting.