The aim of this study is to investigate sleep disorders in children with learning difficulties. For this reason a specific sleep disorders' questionnaire was administered. In this pilot study 92 children took part after coming for a psychological consultation to the Outpatient Department of Psychology of the General Children's Hospital of Penteli. None of these children present organic pathology.
The results of the study indicate that 20,2% of our population has little or restless sleep. 22,8% wakes up during the night. Furthermore, several symptoms appear during children's sleep: 17,6% speak during their sleep, 14,1% have nightmares, 8,8% have nocturnal enuresis and 3,3% present somnambulism. It was also found that 45,5% is frightened by dark, 31% are afraid to sleep alone, and 15,1% fear to go to bed.
In addition to these descriptive statistics we made correlations with variables such as age, sex, existence of siblings and psychological diagnosis.