Sleep and Development

"The most important and practical questions about sleep in children and adolescents in contemporary society require an integrated approach that includes a broader understanding of the family, social, and cultural contexts in which sleep occurs, develops, goes awry, and influences and interacts with an immense range of different aspects of life. Mona El-Sheikh and her colleagues have taken a huge step toward accomplishing this set of goals. This book provides a matrix of understanding the family and socio-cultural contexts that is not only pragmatically helpful and interesting, but also will help to frame future investigations that will lead to a deeper and better integrated understanding of sleep and development across numerous disciplines." --from the Foreword by Ronald E. Dahl, M.D., Professor of Public Health University of California at Berkeley "This volume is an extremely valuable contribution to the pediatric sleep field and represents a notable blend of science with applications to real parent and child contexts, while maintaining a scientifically accurate vision. It deserves close scrutiny from all those who are involved in developmental sleep research and want to look at a child's sleep from an evolutionary (or different) perspective."--Oliviero Bruni, M.D., President of the International Pediatric Sleep Association and Director of the Pediatric Sleep Center, Department of Developmental Neurology and Psychiatry, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy "At last! A comprehensive and integrative review of exciting new research and practice of one of the most important human activities --sleep. Sleep is a biological function that affects growth and health, a psychological function that affects social-emotional and cognitive functioning, and a culturally organized social function that affects the emotional and physical health of other family members. In this book a cast of experts in each of these domains presents an overview and a biopsychosocial integration that will be of great use to students, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who are invested in understanding and improving sleep, and consequently, the quality of life of developing children."--Arnold Sameroff, Ph.D., Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan