↓ Skip to main content

Sleep disturbances are associated with specific sensory sensitivities in children with autism

Overview of attention for article published in Molecular Autism, March 2018
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (88th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (65th percentile)

Mentioned by

twitter
30 X users
facebook
3 Facebook pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
82 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
173 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Sleep disturbances are associated with specific sensory sensitivities in children with autism
Published in
Molecular Autism, March 2018
DOI 10.1186/s13229-018-0206-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Orna Tzischinsky, Gal Meiri, Liora Manelis, Asif Bar-Sinai, Hagit Flusser, Analya Michaelovski, Orit Zivan, Michal Ilan, Michal Faroy, Idan Menashe, Ilan Dinstein

Abstract

Sensory abnormalities and sleep disturbances are highly prevalent in children with autism, but the potential relationship between these two domains has rarely been explored. Understanding such relationships is important for identifying children with autism who exhibit more homogeneous symptoms. Here, we examined this relationship using the Caregiver Sensory Profile and the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire, which were completed by parents of 69 children with autism and 62 age-matched controls. In line with previous studies, children with autism exhibited more severe sensory abnormalities and sleep disturbances than age-matched controls. The sleep disturbance scores were moderately associated with touch and oral sensitivities in the autism group and with touch and vestibular sensitivities in the control group. Hypersensitivity towards touch, in particular, exhibited the strongest relationship with sleep disturbances in the autism group and single-handedly explained 24% of the variance in total sleep disturbance scores. In contrast, sensitivity in other sensory domains such as vision and audition was not associated with sleep quality in either group. While it is often assumed that sensitivities in all sensory domains are similarly associated with sleep problems, our results suggest that hypersensitivity towards touch exhibits the strongest relationship with sleep disturbances when examining children autism. We speculate that hypersensitivity towards touch interferes with sleep onset and maintenance in a considerable number of children with autism who exhibit severe sleep disturbances. This may indicate the existence of a specific sleep disturbance mechanism that is associated with sensitivity to touch, which may be important to consider in future scientific and clinical studies.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 30 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 173 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 173 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 23 13%
Student > Bachelor 23 13%
Researcher 22 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 17 10%
Other 10 6%
Other 24 14%
Unknown 54 31%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 31 18%
Neuroscience 20 12%
Medicine and Dentistry 19 11%
Nursing and Health Professions 12 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 6 3%
Other 19 11%
Unknown 66 38%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 19. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 November 2022.
All research outputs
#1,896,310
of 25,147,320 outputs
Outputs from Molecular Autism
#182
of 713 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#40,068
of 335,724 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Molecular Autism
#9
of 23 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,147,320 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 713 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 28.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 335,724 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 23 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its contemporaries.