The Association Between Infant Sleep, Cognitive, and Psychomotor Development: A Systematic Review.

To synthesize findings of original articles examining the association between sleep-wake patterns of typically developing infants aged 0-to-18 months and cognitive and psychomotor development. A systematic search strategy was used to identify articles assessing the association between infant sleep (0-to-18 months) and cognitive/psychomotor development (Medline, PsycINFO, SCOPUS). Of 7,136 articles screened, 22 articles met inclusion criteria, and the results were subsequently synthesized. A quality assessment was conducted, and studies were categorized as "poor", "fair", or "good". Out of 22 studies, two found exclusively significant associations between infant sleep and cognitive/psychomotor development, three found no significant associations and 17 found mixed results. Studies with exclusively significant results used a single sleep variable and single timepoint designs. Studies finding mixed results or no significant associations used multiple sleep, developmental variables, or multi-timepoint designs. Eight out of 10 studies and seven out of eight studies investigating nocturnal and total sleep duration, respectively, found no significant association with developmental outcomes. While 63% of studies were rated as having good methodological quality, all studies but one had estimated power of less than 0.80. Findings of this review do not support conclusive associations between sleep-wake patterns in infancy and cognitive/psychomotor development. This conclusion contrasts with the literature in older populations, questioning if the association between sleep and development is of a different nature in infancy, potentially because of brain maturation. More studies including larger samples will be needed to clarify the presence or absence of such an association.

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© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Sleep Research Society.