A new study suggests that children should get at least an hour of afternoon nap to improve learning and memory.
Rebecca Spencer, lead author of the study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and her colleagues found that afternoon naps are crucial for children especially those between three and five year old.
The researchers recruited 77 children from six preschool classrooms. They were shown 12 cartoon images in the morning. After lunch, they were asked to complete a one-hour nap under the supervision of their classroom teachers. As soon as they wake up, the researchers called each participant to recall the cartoon images from the morning. They just need to recall seven out of the 12 images to meet the standards set by the researchers.
Their experiment revealed that children were able to recall 10 percent more than the expected number of images. This proves that an afternoon nap indeed improves memory consolidation for the preschool children.
Fourteen children were also brought to a laboratory for brain scans. They wanted to know the activities happening to the brain during the nap. The researchers have observed increased activities in the brain regions responsible for the memory consolidation and storing new information.
It is previously known that taking a nap improves the mental function of adults but this is the first time that a group of researchers studied if it will work the same for kids. Based on these findings, daytime sleep can be as important as night time sleep and preschool classes may want to spare some time to give the preschool children a nap time to help them retain all the information given to them during the morning.
"Essentially we are the first to report evidence that naps are important for preschool children,” Spencer told BBC News.
"Our study shows that naps help the kids better remember what they are learning in preschool," she added.
The study was published in the Sept. 23 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
