Parents often report that their children experience problems sleeping and wonder whether there is any connection with nystagmus.
Now a team at University College, London is conducting a research study into vision impairment and sleep patterns.
Jess Marshall is a research assistant at UCL Institute of Education. Jess is working on Dr Jessica Hayton’s project examining sleep in children with vision impairment (aged between 5-11 years). The project is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme small research grant and is ethically approved by the Ethics Committee at UCL.
The aim of the study is to establish whether sleeping problems are evident in children with vision impairment. To do this, they will be comparing sleeping patterns of sighted children to those of children with a vision impairment. They are now recruiting any sighted child aged 5-11 years and any child with a vision impairment (ranging from partial sightedness to blindness).
The study explores sleep and sleep-related issues using actigraphy (a motion sensitive non-invasive wristwatch), sleep diaries and parental report questionnaire. The sleep diary is to be kept for a minimum of 5 nights if possible and the actigraphy is optional, but it does help!
Participants will not need to travel to London as the actigraphy watch can be posted to a home address.
If any parents/carers might be interested in their child(ren) participating, please email Jess ([email protected] ) or Dr Hayton ([email protected]). Parents and participants will then be provided with more information.
