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Normative psychomotor vigilance task performance in children ages 6 to 11—the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea (TuCASA)

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Abstract

Although the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) is commonly used in sleep and other research settings, normative data for PVT performance in children have not been published. This report presents normal PVT performance measures among children without a sleep disorder participating in the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea (TuCASA) study. TuCASA is a community-based, prospective study of sleep-disordered breathing in Caucasian and Hispanic children ages 6 to 11 years. A standard 10-min PVT trial was completed by 360 participants—48% female and 36% Hispanic; mean age 8.9 years. Detailed analyses were performed for 162 children with respiratory disturbance indices <1 and no parent-reported sleep problems. Mean and median reaction times (RT) decreased with increasing age (p trend < 0.001). Children ages 6 and 11 had median RTs of 544.24 and 325.70 ms, respectively. Standard deviations in RTs also decreased with increasing age (p trend = 0.001), as did lapses (p trend < 0.001), but no trend was apparent in total errors. There were statistically significant (p = 0.006) differences in the performance of boys and girls. Gender differences were greatest at age 6, where boys had shorter RTs, and decreased with age until performance was approximately equal by age 11. No ethnic differences were detected. Children’s PVT performance improves with age and differs by gender. These differences should be considered when the PVT is utilized in pediatric populations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Charles Wynstra, MBA, RRT; Marty Ukockis, RPSGT, RRT; Marissa Carey, Ph.D.; Fernanda Martinez, Ph.D.; and Mary Frances Miller, BA, for their diligence in data collection and scoring. We also thank the principals, teachers, parents, and students from the Tucson Unified School District for their ongoing support of this research. This document is a portion of a thesis submitted in partial completion of the requirements for a Master of Science degree at the University of Arizona. This work was supported by HL 62373 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Public Health, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 245033, Tucson, AZ, 85724, USA

    Claire C. Venker & Denise J. Roe

  2. Arizona Respiratory Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    James L. Goodwin

  3. Children’s Research Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Kristine L. Kaemingk

  4. Center for Evaluation & Program Improvement, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Shelagh Mulvaney

  5. Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, Sleep and Arizona Respiratory Centers, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Stuart F. Quan

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  1. Claire C. Venker
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  2. James L. Goodwin
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  3. Denise J. Roe
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  4. Kristine L. Kaemingk
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  5. Shelagh Mulvaney
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  6. Stuart F. Quan
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Correspondence to Claire C. Venker.

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Venker, C.C., Goodwin, J.L., Roe, D.J. et al. Normative psychomotor vigilance task performance in children ages 6 to 11—the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea (TuCASA). Sleep Breath 11, 217–224 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-007-0103-4

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