Child Autism & Insomnia
Insomnia Management
These tools can be downloaded to help you, your patients and their caregivers monitor the child sleep, understand the characteristics of the child’s sleep problem its frequency and impact on behavior at home, school or in social interactions, help implement strategies to improve sleep and understand what a good night sleep is and evaluate treatment success.
CSDI Screener
The CSDI is a validated tool scoring the frequency and duration of sleep problems reported by parents and takes approximately five minutes to complete.
It may help you in screening insomnia in your patients. It can either be completed by your patient’s caregiver prior to the first consultation or discussed with you during the visit.
Sleep Diary
The attached Core Sleep Diary is a standardized checklist that will allow the caregiver discuss with you what insomnia symptoms their child is experiencing and their frequency.
You may want to share with them the Sleep Diary and ask them to complete it so they can provide you with as detailed description of the symptoms at the first visit and during follow-up visits, to assess the child progress with treatment.
Sleep Hygiene Guide
In order to help the child sleep longer, a relaxing bedroom environment, a consistent sleep routine and some lifestyle changes should be made.
You may want to provide your patient with “Parent’s Guide for Sleep Improvement in Children with ASD” created by Autism Speaks.
Treatment evaluation tool and treatment goals
It is crucial for you as clinician to assure treatment effectiveness and optimal outcomes. The structured treatment evaluation tool and treatment goals developed by leading KOLs in the field allow you exactly that.
The attached questionnaire evaluating the child’s sleep parameters along with a personalized evaluation of behavioral features and parents' satisfaction. It can optionally be filled by the parent to enable treatment optimization by the clinician. The questionnaire have defined treatment goals:
- Sleep onset latency < 30 minutes.
- Longest (uninterrupted) sleep episode > 6 hours.
- Total sleep time - according to sleep recommendations by age.
References: 1. Appleton, R., et al.Health Technol Assess. 2012;16(40):i-239.; 2. Carney, CE., et al., Sleep, 2012;35(2): 287-302; 3. Banaschewski T, et al. J Autism Dev Disord. 2021;10.1007/s10803-021-05236-w.