Contagious and spontaneous yawning in autistic and typically developing children

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Contagious and spontaneous yawning in autistic and typically developing children

Previous studies have reported the absence of a contagious effect when autistic children view another’s yawning. This result could be due to the difficulty of autistic children in establishing reciprocal gaze behaviour with human partners. Furthermore, the presence of a contagious effect in autistic children could change according their degree of functioning. We evaluated the contagious effect of yawning in both autistic children with different degrees of functioning and in typically developing children exposed to the viewing and hearing of others yawn. Furthermore the frequency and the daily distribution of spontaneous yawning were evaluated and compared among three groups. Autism Spectrum Disorder can selectively affect some behaviour. In autistic children the contagious effect of yawning is largely impaired, whereas the spontaneous production and daily distribution are not. These results support the hypothesis of a link between contagious yawning and social abilities and the existence of different processes underlying spontaneous and contagious yawning.L’absence de sensibilité à la contagion du bâillement des enfants autistes a déjà été décrite dans la littérature psychologique. La difficulté de ces enfants à produire un contact visuel dyadique pourrait en être la cause. En fait, il est possible que cette situation diffère suivant le niveau d’atteinte autistique.En projetant une vidéo de bâillements et faisant écouter un enregistrement sonore de bâillements, nous avons évalué l'effet contagieux du bâillement chez des enfants autistes, dont l’atteinte était plus ou moins profonde, en les comparant à des enfants non autistes.Nous avons également évalué la fréquence et la distribution journalière de bâillements spontanés et comparé entre elles les données recueillies dans trois groupes différents. Chez les enfants autistes, l'effet contagieux du bâillement est profondément altéré, alors que la fréquence des bâillements spontanés et leur distribution journalière ne sont pas modifiées. Ces résultats tendent à confirmer l’hypothèse d’un lien entre la contagion du bâillement et l’aptitude élaborer un lien social apparenté à l’empathie. Il en résulte qu’il est probable que les bâillements spontanés et les bâillements contagieux font intervenir des processus neuropsychologiques différentes

Prevalence and Determinants of Bad Sleep Perception among Italian Children and Adolescents

Although sleep problems at young ages are well investigated, the prevalence of bad sleepers and the determinants of sleep quality perception remain unexplored in these populations. For this purpose, we addressed these issues in a sample of children (n = 307), preadolescents (n = 717), and adolescents (n = 406) who completed the School Sleep Habits Survey, addressing sleep quality perception, sleep habits, sleep features, daytime behavior and sleep disturbances, circadian preference, and dreaming. The sample was split in "good sleepers" and "bad sleepers", based on the answer to the question item assessing overall subjective sleep quality. Being a bad sleeper was reported by 11.7% of the sample, with significant between-groups differences (children: 8.3%; preadolescents: 11.3%; adolescents: 15.3%; p = 0.01). At all ages, relative to good sleepers, bad sleepers showed higher eveningness, sleepiness, and depression, longer sleep latency, more frequent insufficient sleep, nocturnal awakenings, sleep-wake behavioral problems, and unpleasant dreams (all p's ≤ 0.01). Sleep quality perception was predicted: in children, by depressed mood, eveningness, and unpleasant dreams (all p's ≤ 0.01); in preadolescents, by sleep latency, awakening frequency, depressed mood, sufficiency of sleep, and unpleasant dreams (all p's < 0.01); in adolescents, by awakening frequency, depressed mood, and sufficiency of sleep (all p's < 0.001). In children, bad subjective sleep quality appears to be mainly determined by daytime psychological features, for example, depressed mood, whereas at later ages, sleep characteristics, such as frequent awakenings, add to the former determinants. This could depend on (a) the appearance, with increasing age, of objective sleep modifications and (b) a greater attention paid by adolescents to their sleep characteristics

Dissociated profiles of sleep timing and sleep quality changes across the first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Previous work showed a significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italians' sleep both during the first wave, when a total lockdown (TL) was imposed, and during the second wave, when a partial lockdown (PL) was mandated (autumn 2020). Here we complement these data by describing the profile of sleep across four time-points: the first and second lockdown (TL, PL) and the months preceding them (pre-TL, pre-PL). An online survey was completed by 214 participants (Mage = 36.78 ± 14.2 y; 159 F) during TL and again during PL. All sleep-related questions (including items of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) required a double answer, one referred to the current lockdown and one to the month preceding the lockdown. Bedtime and rise time were delayed in TL and then advanced in pre-PL and PL. Similarly, time in bed increased in TL and then decreased in pre-PL and PL. Sleep quality worsened in the two lockdowns compared to the preceding periods and the proportion of poor sleepers correspondingly increased in both lockdowns. Sleep habits and quality displayed different profiles across phases of the pandemic. Sleep timing was altered during the first lockdown and then returned towards baseline (likely due to normalized working schedules). Instead, sleep quality, which markedly worsened during both lockdowns, appears particularly sensitive to changes in life habits and psychological factors, independently of sleep habits. Our findings also point to a possible role of acute and chronic stress (experienced during the first and second wave, respectively) in modulating sleep changes across the pandemic waves

The effects of the COVID19-related lockdown are modulated by age: an Italian study in toddlers and pre-schoolers

Although the issue has been repeatedly explored, data on the impact of the COVID-19 pan- demic on children’s sleep quality are inconsistent. To clarify these discrepancies, here we investigate possible age-related differences. During the lockdown, 112 parents of toddlers (0–3 years, N = 61) and pre-schoolers (4–5 years, n = 51) completed an online survey including the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ). Sleep-related items required an additional retrospective judgment, referring to the pre-pandemic period. During the lockdown, sleep schedules were delayed in both age groups whereas sleep quality (CSHQ total scores) improved in pre-schoolers but not in toddlers. Between-groups comparisons revealed that, prior to the lockdown, pre-schoolers showed worse sleep quality than toddlers, whereas this difference disappeared during home confinement. Also, pre-schoolers’ sleep timing was advanced before the lockdown and delayed during the lockdown relative to toddlers’. Our data highlight a significant modulation of age on the impact of the pandemic crisis on sleep, with pre-schoolers experiencing greater effects than toddlers. This profile suggests that factors affecting sleep features have different weights at different ages: sleep patterns would be mainly determined by developmental factors (i.e., biological drive) in younger children, whereas environmental factors (e.g., major lifestyle changes) would have a stronger effect on older ones

Intuitive thinking predicts false memory formation due to a decrease in inhibitory efficiency

False memory formation is usually studied using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM), in which individuals incorrectly remember words that were not originally presented. In this paper, we systematically investigated how two modes of thinking (analytical vs. intuitive) can influence the tendency to create false memories. The increased propensity of intuitive thinkers to generate more false memories can be explained by one or both of the following hypotheses: a decrease in the inhibition of the lure words that come to mind, or an increased reliance on the familiarity heuristic to determine if the word has been previously studied. In two studies, we conducted tests of both recognition and recall using the DRM paradigm. Our observations indicate that a decrease in inhibitory efficiency plays a larger role in false memory formation compared to the use of the familiarity heuristic