Current guidelines concerning the amount of sleep needed by children of different ages are more often breached than not. Many children, who go to bed late, cannot function effectively at school because they are sleep deprived.

Researchers at the University of South Australia have found that a general lack of awareness about the amount of sleep that children need at different ages is a contributing factor to sleep loss.

As part of a broader public health strategy addressing sleep, health and learning in children, Associate Professor Kurt Lushington from UniSA’s School of Psychology, along with researchers from the Centre for Sleep Research and the Sleep Disorders Unit at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, developed the Sleep Slide Rule for use in the classroom to illustrate the relationship between children’s age and their sleep needs.

“Children learn a lot about things like health, eating and exercise, but little or nothing is taught about good sleeping habits,” Prof Lushington said.

“The Sleep Slide Rule is a colourful and entertaining educational tool designed to help children learn about the amount of sleep they need at different ages.”

The top bar of the tool indicates bed-times and the bottom bar shows wake-up times. By placing a movable pointer on the sleep time, children can follow the colour band for their particular age group to see what the corresponding wake-up time range should be on the bottom bar of the tool.

The recommended sleep times for children aged three to five years are (11 – 13 hours), five to 12 years (10 – 11 hours), and 12 to 18 years (8 – 10 hours).

The Sleep Slide Rule, along with an extensive sleep education program, was piloted by primary school teachers in a South Australian Catholic primary school.

The response from children and their teachers was that the tool was big and easy to use, the writing style was ‘cool’, and it covered all ages. Teachers said the slide rule was also instructive and functional and, importantly, addressed the absence of educational aids on sleep available for use in the classroom.

“Many children didn’t know that they needed so much sleep and that they needed to change their bed-time if they were getting up too early or too late. They learnt what a ‘school night’ meant and that they don’t need as much sleep when they get older. They also learnt that bed-time and going to sleep time are different and that sleep is really important,” Prof Lushington said.

The tool was developed in response to UniSA research, based on sleep surveys in 1985 and 2004, which show that school children aged between 10 and 15 years are averaging at least 30 minutes less sleep than children of the same ages did 20 years ago.

“Increases in the number of computers, televisions and play stations in bedrooms, and children using mobile phones indicate that ‘lights out’ is less likely to coincide with the onset of sleep, leading to an overestimation of sleep time in the 2004 sleep survey.”

With requests to buy the Sleep Slide Rule, Prof Lushington hopes to get funding to produce a smaller version of the tool for use by individuals and families.