Science - Naps Nurture Growing Brains

Naps Nurture Growing Brains Courtesy Rebecca Spencer
Encoding memories. The author's daughter participates in a nap study of preschoolers, which found that naps help young children remember what they learned and produce "sleep spindles," short bursts of brain activity associated with memory processing (circled in red).

Few features of child-rearing occupy as much parental brain space as sleep, and with it the timeless question: Is my child getting enough? Despite the craving among many parents for more sleep in their offspring (and, by extension, themselves), the purpose that sleep serves in young kids remains something of a mystery—especially when it comes to daytime naps. Do they help children retain information, as overnight sleep has been found to do in adults? A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the first evidence that daytime sleep is critical for effective learning in young children.

MurielB a écrit:... There is a "faux ami" you taught me
"critical" is not "critique" but "very important"