Vol 11, N°1 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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wareness of the importance of sleep disorders medicine is undoubtedly gaining ground, but the pace of progress is slow.The considerable amount of knowledge that has accumulated in recent times remains underuti- lized because awareness of these advances by both the general public and professionals remains inadequate.This is especially so regarding pediatric aspects of sleep and its disorders. Health education for parents and prospective parents often pays little regard to sleep.With some commendable exceptions,  medical  students,  and  specialist  trainees, including pediatricians and child psychiatrists, health vis- itors, child psychologists, and teachers, receive little rele- vant instruction despite the fact that they all come into contact  with  many  young  people  whose  sleep  is  dis- turbed, sometimes with serious consequences. This relative neglect of children is interesting historically. To some degree it can be seen to reflect the very gradual and sporadic emergence of pediatrics in general as a branch of medicine in its own right. At times (and in some respects still), children have been thought of as lit- tle adults. The extent to which this has been the case has been hotly debated by historians. On various grounds,Aries1 argued that for many centuries childhood was not acknowledged as a distinct period of development. This view was con- sidered by some to have lingered on in some respects until as late as the 19th century; witness child labor and C l i n i c a l  r e s e a r c h A Copyright © 2009 LLS SAS.  All rights reserved www.dialogues-cns.org Aspects of sleep disorders in children and adolescents Gregory Stores, MA, MD, DPM, FRCPsych, FRCP     Keywords:  sleep disorder; child; adolescent   Author affiliations: Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, UK Address  for  correspondence:  Professor  Gregory  Stores,  North  Gate  House,  55 High Street, Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire OX10 7HN, UK (e-mail: gregory.stores@psych.ox.ac.uk) Sleep disorders in children and adolescents is a topic that has been, and remains, neglected in both public health education and professional training. Although much knowledge has been accumulated in recent times, it has been poorly disseminated and, therefore, relatively lit- tle is put into practice. Only some general issues can be discussed in this article. The aspects chosen relate mainly to  clinical  practice,  but  they  also  have  relevance  for research. They concern various differences between sleep disorders in children and those in adults, the occurrence of such disorders in young people, their effects on psy- chological and physical development, the essential (but often ignored) distinction between sleep problems and their underlying causes (ie, sleep disorders), types of sleep disturbance encountered at different ages during development, and the differential diagnosis of certain parasomnias that are at particular risk of being confused with each other. © 2009, LLS SAS Dialogues Clin Neurosci.  2009;11:81-90.