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Review
. 2025 Mar 1;50(3):266-271.
doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsae107.

Topical review: sleep regulation as a novel target for treating preschool-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms

Jessica R Lunsford-Avery  1 , Jade Q Wu  2 , Alexis French  1 , Naomi O Davis  1
Affiliations
Review

Topical review: sleep regulation as a novel target for treating preschool-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms

Jessica R Lunsford-Avery et al. J Pediatr Psychol. .

Abstract

Objective: Elevated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in preschoolers are a risk factor for poorer psychiatric health, cognitive deficits, and social and academic impairment across the lifespan. The first-line treatment for these preschoolers, behavioral parent training (BPT), reduces children's disruptive behaviors and parenting stress, yet its impact on core ADHD symptoms is inconsistent. Early interventions targeting biological mechanisms linked to core ADHD pathophysiology are critically needed.

Methods: This topical review explores sleep dysregulation as a potential key target for early intervention for ADHD symptoms among preschoolers.

Results: Sleep dysregulation is common in school-aged children with ADHD, and treating sleep improves core ADHD symptoms in older children. Cross-sectional and prospective research with preschoolers offers compelling evidence that sleep dysregulation and ADHD symptoms are closely linked over the course of early development. BPT and behavioral sleep medicine (BSM) interventions share an underlying theoretical framework and could be streamlined to target sleep in addition to daytime behaviors.

Conclusions: Novel early interventions targeting underlying biological mechanisms linked to core ADHD pathophysiology are critically needed to improve the trajectories of ADHD symptoms, comorbidity, and functional deficits for preschoolers with elevated ADHD symptoms. Sleep regulation is a promising mechanistic treatment target for this population, and future interventions may draw from the shared behavioral principles of BPT and BSM to target behaviors across the 24-hr period and employ scalable formats to optimize the number of families who can benefit from parent-based interventions targeting ADHD symptoms and sleep in early development.

Keywords: ADHD; early development; early intervention; preschool; sleep.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Conceptual model depicting current evidence for downstream effects of BPT treatment on ADHD symptoms and related impairments. BPT = behavioral parent training; ADHD = attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Hypothesized conceptual model depicting potential downstream effects of combined BPT and BSM treatment on ADHD symptoms and related impairments. BPT = behavioral parent training; BSM = behavioral sleep medicine; ADHD = attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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