title: Sleep Dependent Memory Consolidation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Examine the role of sleep in the consolidation of declarative memory in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
  
  
  METHODS
  Case-control study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Home-based study with sleep and wake conditions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-two participants with ASD and 20 control participants between 9 and 16 y of age.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants were trained to criterion on a spatial declarative memory task and then given a cued recall test. Retest occurred after a period of daytime wake (Wake) or a night of sleep (Sleep) with home-based polysomnography; Wake and Sleep conditions were counterbalanced. Children with ASD had poorer sleep efficiency than controls, but other sleep macroarchitectural and microarchitectural measures were comparable after controlling for age and medication use. Both groups demonstrated better memory consolidation across Sleep than Wake, although participants with ASD had poorer overall memory consolidation than controls. There was no interaction between group and condition. The change in performance across sleep, independent of medication and age, showed no significant relationships with any specific sleep parameters other than total sleep time and showed a trend toward less forgetting in the control group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study shows that despite their more disturbed sleep quality, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) still demonstrate more stable memory consolidation across sleep than in wake conditions. The findings support the importance of sleep for stabilizing memory in children with and without neurodevelopmental disabilities. Our results suggest that improving sleep quality in children with ASD could have direct benefits to improving their overall cognitive functioning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Kiran
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maski
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Holbrook
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Dara
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Manoach
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hanson
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Statistics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Kush
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kapur
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA.|Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stickgold
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000069077:Memory Consolidation / Q000502:physiology*; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D017286:Polysomnography; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology
keywords: autism spectrum disorder; children; cognition; memory consolidation; sleep