The Relations Between Children's Sleep and School Engagement: Moderation by Socioeconomic Status and Sex

Given established associations between children's sleep and many outcomes, and the theorized relations between sleep and school functioning, the goal of this study was to examine the relations between children's actigraphy-assessed sleep and school engagement. We used data from a diverse sample of twins (<i>N</i> = 710; Analytic <i>N</i> = 599; <i>M</i> _age = 8.52; 51% female; 57% Non-Hispanic White/European American; 25% Hispanic/Latino; 32% at or near the poverty line) to test our predictions. Measures of sleep included actigraphy-based sleep efficiency, sleep duration hours, and sleep duration variability. Teachers reported on children's participation, school liking, and school avoidance, and parents reported on SES. Moderation analyses revealed negative relations between sleep efficiency (and duration hours) and school avoidance for low, but not high SES families, and the positive relation between sleep efficiency and participation was strongest for children from low SES families. For girls, but not boys, sleep efficiency and sleep duration hours were negatively related to school avoidance, whereas sleep variability was positively related to school avoidance. Sleep efficiency and duration hours were positively related to school liking whereas duration variability was negatively related to school liking. These findings provide novel insight into children's sleep and their classroom engagement and highlight the particular importance of sleep for low SES families and girls.