Sleep in Young Children With Autism, ADHD and Combined Presentations.

Sleep was rated by caregivers, not measured objectively, and caregiver reports can differ from actual sleep. ADHD diagnoses at 36 months were provisional, so later classification could change. Only 8 children had both autism and ADHD, so differences in that group were hard to detect. The follow-up interval was only 1 year, which may be too short to separate group trajectories. Some sleep differences were reduced after accounting for cognitive ability, so they may reflect broader development rather than diagnosis alone. Maternal education differed between groups and was included in sensitivity models, but not main models. Sleep disordered breathing scores were low and varied little, so the ADHD change result is uncertain.

Funding came from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Stiftelsen Sunnerdahls Handikappfond, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking, and the European Commission. Sven Bölte declares no direct conflicts for this article, but he has acted as a consultant or lecturer for Medice, Takeda, Neuraxpharm, Merk Sharp & Dohme, and LinusBio, receives royalties from Hogrefe, UTB, Ernst Reinhardt, Kohlhammer, and Liber, and is CEO of NeuroSupportSolutions International AB. The remaining authors declare no conflicts.

Do not conclude that sleep problems reliably differ by diagnosis in early childhood. The expected group difference in change over the toddler period was not found, and the combined autism and ADHD group was too small to support separate conclusions.