Napping during the day helps young children learn new words, research finds

YOUNG children who nap during the day are better at learning new words, a study says.

Researchers found three-year-olds who slept after learning new verbs had a better understanding in tests the next day.

They taught the children two made-up words - "blicking" and "rooping" - and assigned each one an action.

The children were shown the same actions the next day and asked to identify which was "blicking" and which was "rooping".

Children who had napped within an hour of learning the verbs performed better than those who stayed awake for five hours after learning. This was true regardless of whether the children were habitual nappers outside of the study.

The interest in pre-school age children's napping habits stemmed from the fact that children start to nap less at this age. Many children will not nap at all during the day when they are in pre-school, having dropped down from five or six naps a day as a baby.

Researchers believe the benefits of napping could come from a type of sleep called slow-wave sleep.

Study co-author Professor Rebecca Gomez said: "There's a lot of evidence that different phases of sleep contribute to memory consolidation, and one of the really important phases is slow-wave sleep, which is one of the deepest forms of sleep."

"What's really important about this phase is that essentially what the brain is doing is replaying memories during sleep, so those brain rhythms that occur during slow-wave sleep and other phases of non-REM sleep are actually reactivating those and replaying them and strengthening them."

"It's important to create opportunities for children to nap - to have a regular time in their schedule to do that."

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