Thompson, Emily;
(2025)
A personalised, co-produced sleep intervention: The impact of a personalised, co-produced sleep intervention on autistic children's sleep quality and mental health.
Doctoral thesis (D.Ed.Psy), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The systematic literature review examined the relationship between autistic children’s sleep and mental health. Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria for the final review. Gough’s Weight of Evidence framework was used to assess the studies’ quality and relevance, while the AXIS checklist was used for assessing the methodological quality. This led to 13 studies receiving a ‘medium’ weight of evidence rating and 1 study receiving a ‘high’ rating. A significant positive relationship between sleep and mental health was found in the majority of studies, suggesting poor sleep can negatively impact autistic children’s mental health. Implications and further research needed is discussed. The empirical paper examined the effectiveness of a personalised sleep intervention on autistic children’s sleep quality and mental health. A mixedmethods approach was employed, using a multiple baseline single case experimental design and semi-structured interviews. Six autistic children participated in the sleep intervention and 3 autistic children and 4 parents in the interviews. Pre-intervention, post-intervention and follow up data was collected for all 6 participants. However due to research constraints only 3 participants participated in the single case experimental design where visual analysis, Tau-U and PEM analysis were employed. A significant weighted average Tau-U small effect size was found, demonstrating the intervention had a positive effect on sleep quality on average across all 3 participants. However, individual analysis found a significant improvement in sleep quality for only 1 participant. Reliable Change Index analysis showed significant improvements in sleep quality pre- to post-intervention for 1 of 6 participants and in mental health for 4 of 6 participants. The interviews shed light on participants’ views of the sleep intervention and the relationship between sleep and mental health. Themes emerged, such as improved sleep outcomes, the child-led nature, enjoyment and accessibility of the routine, helping to inform development of future sleep interventions.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | D.Ed.Psy |
| Title: | A personalised, co-produced sleep intervention: The impact of a personalised, co-produced sleep intervention on autistic children's sleep quality and mental health |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212193 |
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