Longitudinal Relations Between Sleep And Cognitive Functioning In Children: Self-Esteem As A Moderator

Short and poor-quality sleep disrupt cognitive functioning, yet associations vary across studies, underscoring the importance of examining individual differences and moderators of risk. Utilizing a multi-method, two-wave longitudinal design, we examined self-esteem as a moderator of relations between actigraphy-derived sleep duration (minutes) and quality (efficiency, long-wake episodes) and children's cognitive functioning 1 year later. During the first study wave (T1), participants were 243 children (47% female) with a mean age of 10.4 years (SD = 8.0 months). The sample was representative of its community, with 37% identifying as Black/African American and 63% White/European American. Children completed a self-esteem measure and wore actigraphs for seven consecutive nights. Participants returned to the lab 1 year later and completed a standardized assessment of cognitive functioning. Results indicated that self-esteem moderated longitudinal associations between sleep quality and cognitive functioning. Specifically, children with both better sleep quality and higher self-esteem performed better relative to other children in the sample.