Night Terrors

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Article 1 – The Sleep of School Children, its Distribution According to Age, and its Relation to Physical and Mental Efficiency

This article by Terman and Hocking (1952) gives an early look, in the 1950’s, at what their thoughts were about sleep terrors were, what they were caused by, and what could be done with them. The language of the article is not language that is currently used, such as calling the participants of the research defectives, which looking back at the 1950’s terminology was acceptable. Today, we call them participants or subjects.

Terman and Hocking (1952) thought children who suffered from night terrors were “occasionally provoked by indigestion, obstructed breathing or other reflex irritations” (p. 273) and more likely by hereditary issues, “notably migraine(s)” (p. 273). During their time of studying, the authors looked into the number of hours a child slept, the ventilation in the house, and the housing conditions. The variables did not prove what they were trying to find, so they went on to looking at the physical issues and ailments of children.

One child in particular, the article chronicles, is haunted by night terrors and self-reports that he has never had a dream, just nightmares. The child’s nightmares were vivid in which he was able to give details. Most of his nightmares had monsters chasing him and starving him and withholding water from him. When the researchers looked into his home life, he and his mother were very poor and did not know when the next meal was going to be. The child, being frustrated after years of having these recurring nightmares, meditated and told himself over and over he was no longer going to suffer from night terrors (p. 274). According to the researche...

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...ian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 33, 734-739.

Guilleminault, C. & Palombini, L. & Pelaya, R. & Chervin, R. (January 2003). Sleepwalking and sleep terrors in prepubertal children: what triggers them? Pediatrics, 11(1), 17-25.

Nguyen, B. et al. (December 2008). Sleep terrors in children: a prospective of twins. Pediatrics, 122(6), 1164-1167.

Shang, C. & Gau, S. & Soong, W. (2006). Association between childhood sleep problems and perinatal factors, prenatal mental distress and behavioral problems. European Sleep Research Society, 15, 63-73.

Stores, G. (1998). Sleep paralysis and hallucinosis. Behavioral Neurology, 11, 109-112.

Terman, L. & Hocking, A. (1952). The sleep of school children, its distribution according to age, and its relation to physical and mental efficiency. The Journal of Educational Psychology, III, 269-282.

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