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Introduction Inadequate parental sleep beliefs and practices have been associated with the development and maintenance of sleep difficulties in children. Disrupted sleep at a young age leads to adverse child outcomes and affects parents' sleep and family functioning. Our goal was to evaluate the effects of improved parental sleep beliefs and practices on child and parent sleep in the short term. Hence, we designed an innovative intervention for developing parenting skills in children's sleep management. Methods 15 caregiver-child dyads with preschool-age children were recruited through daycare centers and placed in small groups for a two-hour intervention and a follow-up. Children's and parents' sleep were respectively measured using the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Parental beliefs were assessed by three subscales (Setting Limits, Anger, Doubt) of the Maternal Cognitions about Infant Sleep Questionnaire (MCISQ). Parental practices were measured by two factors (Sleep Conflict, Sleep Dependence) of the Parent-Child Sleep Interactions Scale (PSIS). Data were collected before the intervention and two weeks later. Paired-sample t-tests were used to measure changes in each variable. Results Significant improvements were observed in scores on CSHQ subscales measuring Bedtime Resistance (t(14)=3.15, p=.004; M=11.3 vs M=9.47), Sleep Onset Delay (t(14)=3.21, p=.003; M=2.40 vs M=1.67), Parasomnias (t(14)=2.35, p=.017; M=10.9 vs M=9.87), and Daytime Sleepiness (t(14)=2.90, p=.006; M=13.0 vs M=11.3). Accordingly, total CSHQ scores were significantly lower (t(14)=4.70, p<.001; M= 55.7 vs M=49.5) reflecting less sleep disturbance in children. Parents' sleep was of superior quality, with global PSQI scores marginally decreased (t(14)=1.75, p=.051; M=6.93 vs M=6.20). Lower Sleep Conflict scores (t(14)=3.44, p=.002; M=7.67 vs M=4.8) and total PSIS scores (t(14)=3.59, p=.001; M=13.3 vs M=9.00) indicated better parental sleep practices. Conclusion These preliminary results show that parental interventions on children’s sleep management can improve child sleep and parental sleep practices. These results also highlight that parental practices about their child’s sleep can change independently of their beliefs. Long-term measures will help verify the course of changes in parents' sleep and beliefs regarding their child’s sleep. Support (if any) This project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Tulving and colleagues (1964) pioneered the study of word recognition by investigating the influence of exposure duration and context length on accurate word identification. The present experiment aimed to replicate the original methodology with modern technology and a demographically heterogeneous sample. Male and female participants (n = 58) between 18-69 years with varying levels of education and who identified English or French as their dominant language were randomly assigned to a context length condition containing either 0, 2, 4, or 8 words from specific sentences. Participants were shown 18 target words for 16.67 ms and asked to type the target word after each one was presented. Participants were then instructed to type each target word in a corresponding fragmented sentence which varied in length according to the number of context words presented (0-, 2-, 4-, or 8-word context). The procedure was repeated for 6 subsequent exposure durations (33.33, 50.00, 66.67, 83.33, 100.00, and 116.67 ms). Repeated Measures ANOVA indicated a significant effect of exposure duration and context length on accurate recall (p < .002). These results corroborate those found by Tulving et al. (1964). No significant interaction was observed between these two variables on recall accuracy (p > .05) compared to what was demonstrated by Tulving et al. (1964). This suggests that the robust memory enhancing effects of longer exposure durations during encoding and longer context lengths during retrieval are reliably observed across a diverse participant sample. To improve generalizability, follow-up studies should use a larger participant sample to determine how demographic factors, including age, sex, education, and language, may influence the effects of exposure duration and context length on word recognition in recall tasks.