Sleep may deepen negative memory bias in anxious children — what Thai parents and schools need to know
New research suggests that sleep can amplify a tendency among anxious children and young adolescents to generalise negative experiences, meaning that a single upsetting event may be more likely to cast a wider shadow over similar, harmless situations after a night’s sleep. In a controlled experiment of 34 participants aged 9–14, higher clinician-rated anxiety was associated with a greater chance of falsely recognising new-but-similar negative images as previously seen — but only in the group that slept between learning and test (PsyPost coverage; Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry abstract) (PsyPost, PubMed record).