p72: the comparison of sleep anxiety in autistic and normal children

sleep disorders in children can lead to considerable complications. in some mental disorders including autism, it has more importance. despite the importance of sleep in children developments and lives, few researches have conducted in this area therefore this research is going to investigate sleep behavioral disorders in children and compare with normal children. research design was causal-comparative study and statistical population was composed of all autistic and normal preschool children. sample population was 97 children including 47 autistic children and 50 normal children were selected by random sampling. children sleep habits questionnaire (cshq) was used as instrument that reported by parents. this scale has 33 items and 8 subscales. statistical findings were analyzed by 19th version of spss. results from multivariable variance analysis showed that sleep behavioral disorders in autistic children had significant difference with normal children (p<0.05). in other words, there were significant difference in bedtime resistance, sleep onset delay,sleep duration, sleep anxiety, night wakening and parasomnias between autistic children and normal children. nevertheless, sleep-disordered breathing and daytime sleepiness had not significant difference in two groups (p>0.05). sleep is an entrance to everyone social, family and emotional function. while sleep disorder should always place in differential diagnosis of children problems, therefore it is recommended that sleep is considered as an important and effective factor in children health field, especially autistic children and educational sessions are designated for parents in this area. however, the results of this research recommend the importance of attention to normal children sleep.