Sleep Duration Moderates the Association Between Children’s Temperament and Academic Achievement

Research Findings: The primary goal of this study was to determine whether sleep duration moderates the relations of 2 dimensions of children’s temperament—shyness and negative emotion—to academic achievement. In the autumn, parents and teachers reported on kindergartners’ and 1st graders’ (N = 103) shyness and negative emotion and research assistants observed negative emotion in the classroom. In the spring, children wore actigraphs that measured their sleep for 5 consecutive school nights, and they completed the Woodcock–Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Interactions between temperament and sleep duration predicting academic achievement were computed. Interactions of sleep duration with parent-reported shyness, teacher-reported negative emotion, and observed negative emotion indicated that the negative relations of shyness or negative emotion to academic achievement were strongest when children slept less. Practice or Policy: Results suggest that sleep duration may be an important bioregulatory factor to consider in young children’s early academic achievement.