Sleep terrors involve a sudden arousal from slow wave sleep accompanied by screaming, crying, and other manifestations of intense fear. Although many children exhibit isolated sleep terror episodes, a few experience these sleep difficulties on a chronic basis. These frequent sleep terrors can lead to a great deal of concern as well as disruption in sleep for other family members. We conducted a study of the effectiveness of one behavioral intervention (scheduled awakenings) for the sleep terrors of three young boys. The boys (5, 6, and 9 years old) had a several-year history of sleep terrors, each more than 2 years. Scheduled awakenings involved arousing the child from sleep approximately 30 minutes before expected sleep terror episodes. Results through a 12-month follow-up using a multiple baseline across children indicated that this intervention quickly and durably reduced the frequency of their nighttime difficulties. Scheduled awakenings are a potentially useful nonmedical intervention for chronic sleep terrors.
Article
Behavioral intervention for childhood sleep terrors.
USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1999
Disciplines
Abstract
Comments
Abstract only. Full-text article is available only through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in Behavior Therapy, 30, 705-715. doi: 10.1016/S0005-7894(99)80034-3.
Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.
Language
en_US
Publisher
Elsevier Inc.
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
Citation Information
Durand, V.M., & Mindell, J.A. (1999). Behavioral intervention for childhood sleep terrors. Behavior Therapy, 30, 705-715. doi: 10.1016/S0005-7894(99)80034-3