Elevated levels of childhood anxiety pose risk for suicide; however, factors that accentuate this risk are unknown. Seventy-one children participated in a longitudinal study investigating anxiety and sleep in childhood (between 7-11 years) and later suicidal ideation (SI; M = 3.3 years later). Sleep was assessed via subjective reports and objective measures (actigraphy and polysomnography). Children with greater anxiety symptoms were at greater risk for later SI when sleep disturbances were present in childhood. Results suggest that sleep disruption may amplify SI risk in anxious children.

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Introduction Introduction. After sleep deprivation, adults demonstrate reduced ability to accurately discriminate socio-emotional cues, including increased perceptions of threat and decreased recognition of subtle emotional facial expressions. Experimental studies in youth are far more limited, but sleep loss may have more profound effects on detection of socio-emotional cues during development when these abilities are still developing. The current study therefore compared children’s responses to ambiguous social vignettes after a night of adequate sleep and two nights of sleep restriction (SR). We hypothesized that SR would result in fewer pro-social responses compared to when children were rested. Methods Methods. A total of 53 healthy children aged 7–11 years old (M = 9.08, SD = 1.34; 56.6% female) completed two counterbalanced emotional assessments; one after a night of 10 hours in bed (assessed via at-home polysomnography) and one a week later after two consecutive nights of SR (7 hours and 6 hours in bed, respectively). At each assessment, children listened to three brief stories depicting ambiguous social vignettes with peers or adults. After each story, children were asked what they would do next in the situation. Responses were recorded verbatim and later coded by blind raters as prosocial, avoidant, aggressive, or ambivalent. Results Results. A difference in response type was detected for one of the three types of vignettes after SR compared to when rested (χ2 (1) = 4.51, p = .02). Specifically, stories including ambiguous actions of another child at school resulted in 1.47 lower odds of a prosocial response compared to all other types when children were sleep restricted. Conclusion Conclusion. Our preliminary findings suggest that inadequate sleep may undermine children’s behavioral responses in ambiguous social situations with peers. These preliminary results require replication, but such investigations may provide greater insight into mechanism that explain documented relationships between sleep and social problems in childhood. Support (if any):