Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the United States asked 40 pre-school children to complete a number of memory tasks in the morning.
The same tasks were repeated with some of the children after they had a nap and also with children that had been kept awake during the two hours scheduled for sleep. Children’s quality of sleep was also measured.
The findings revealed that following a nap, children recalled ten per cent more of the 'spatial locations' than they did when they hadn’t slept during the afternoon, i.e. where nine or ten items were located on a grid.
Sleep also had the greatest benefit on learning for children who napped five days or more per week on average.
The authors of the study claim that the proven benefits of an afternoon nap on learning warrants preservation of the ‘nap opportunity’ as curriculum demands for young children increase.
They go on to say that ‘techniques for enhancing pre-school naps should be investigated’, and call for consideration to be given as to whether naps may help children with learning delays.
Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith, research fellow at the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck University of London, said, ‘It’s been very clear for several years that sleep plays a critical role in the consolidation of learning in humans.
‘The question is whether the learning remains after a second delay and whether it generalises. But yes, naps are critical for toddlers and good sleep is critical for learning in adolescents.’
- The study, 'Sleep spindles in midday naps enhance learning in pre-school children', is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.