Abstract
The Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) is often used to assess sleep in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but little is known about its factor structure in younger children with ASD. We evaluated alternative factor structures and measurement invariance for CSHQ items in 2- to 4-year-olds with ASD or typical development (TD). Bifactor models indicated subscales’ variance was subsumed by a general factor predominantly reflecting sleep initiation and nighttime awakening items. A factor consisting of 7 of these items was measurement invariant across ASD and TD. Thus, comparisons between young children with ASD and TD is appropriate for a measure composed of 7 CSHQ items relating to sleep initiation and awakenings but not for other CSHQ item composites.
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We gratefully acknowledge the families who have participated.
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Funding was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH068398 [SO] and K99 MH092431 [AJS] for study 1; R00 MH092431 [AJS] for study 2; R01MH103284 [MS] and R01MH103371 [DGA] for study 3; R01MH104438 [CWN] for study 4). Study 1,3 and 4 were also supported by the MIND Institute Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (U54HD079125) and the Autism Center of Excellence (P50 HD093079) awarded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD).
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SO and AJS designed and obtained funding for the MIND Infant-Sibling study; CWN designed and obtained funding for the GAIN and APP study; AJS designed and obtained funding for the Purdue Infant-Sibling study; BH analyzed the data; all authors contributed to acquisition or interpretation of data; BH wrote the first draft; all authors provided critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content; MM, SO, CWN, & AJS provided supervision.
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Hatch, B., Nordahl, C.W., Schwichtenberg, A.J. et al. Factor Structure of the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire in Young Children with and Without Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 3126–3137 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04752-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04752-5