Welcome to SleepDisorderHelp.com!
If you or your child/teen have sleep problems, we might be able to help you find some solutions with only a little information from you. With our sleep screener, we help identify and correct ~ 87% of the major and most common sleep disorders in children and teens.
First you need to ask yourself if your child or adolescent has any of the warning signs of a major sleep disorder that are listed below:
RED FLAGS of a Sleep Disorder:
Snoring in Sleep?
Difficulty Falling Asleep or Staying Asleep?
Kicking or Moving Around often in Sleep?
Nighttime Bedwetting?
Choking, Gasping, or Snorting in Sleep?
Too Active or Too Tired in Daytime?
Irritable or Temperamental?
Difficulty Awakening?
Staying Awake Too Late at Night?
Open Mouth Breathing in Day or Nighttime?
Little Sleep Attacks or Excessive Daytime Sleepiness?
Breathing Stops Briefly or for Many Seconds during Sleep?
Distractible/Difficulty Concentrating on Homework or Difficult Tasks?
Sometimes Experiences or Complains of Aching or Tingling Limbs?
Learning or Memory Problems?
Behavior Problems or more Irritability than others of the same age?
If your child or teenager has one or more of these symptoms of a major sleep disorder, then it is important that you continue to read below to find out what to do. Let us reassure you that most major sleep disorders are usually corrected quickly and successfully once you know which of the 84 possible sleep disorders you or your child might have. With accurate identification comes the right recommendations or treatment to correct the problems quickly, which we can give you here at this website if you are interested.
However, major sleep disorders need to be identified and corrected as soon as possible because most of them cause either cognitive (memory and processing problems), learning, behavioral, and/or health problems. These sleep problems can significantly impair your child's school performance, health and safety.
If you are interested in identifying your child's sleep problems with 86%-96% accuracy (when compared with overnight sleep study results), and about 80% accuracy for adults, then you may want to read more below about our on-line sleep screener that can give you answers within 10-15 minutes:
The Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students (SDIS):
I. It has been analyzed and rated by renowned sleep specialists as the most accurately developed sleep screening inventory in the world (Spruyt & Gozal, 2011, in Sleep Medicine Review).
II. It is the only ON-LINE SLEEP SCREENER IN THE WORLD FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS where you can get immediate answers to your sleep questions in report and graph format after answering about 35-45 questions.
The SDIS features:
1. A 10-minute screening inventory that can be completed by parents about their child/teen's problematic sleep problems.
2. After you answer 35-40 questions, you will immediately receive a computer-scored, comprehensive analytical report and graph with interventions or treatment suggestions that have been developed by well-known sleep specialists in the USA and internationally.
3. Within 10-15 minutes you will know with 86% accuracy (predictive validity) with children (ages 2-10yrs.) and 96% accuracy with teenagers (ages 11-18 yrs.) if they have a major sleep disorder and what to do about it. It has not been validated on adults over 18 years of age yet, but it can give adults a fairly accurate indication of whether they may have one of the most common and harmful sleep disorders. The SDIS indicates whether the sleep problems are something that you can correct at home on your own, or if you need the help of your physician or a sleep specialist to correct the problems. People like to take this report to their physician and show the results if problems are indicated that require medical treatment.
4. This comprehensive screening for children from ages 2 yrs. through 18 yrs. can help identify the six major sleep disorders (Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Narcolepsy, Restless Legs Syndrome, Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood, and Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome), that impair children/teen's school performance, behaviors, health, and safety. If an adult wants to take this screening that only goes up to 18 years of age, s/he must put in the age of 18 years and a date of birth to correspond to 18 years old, and then complete the screener (See exact instructions on screening page).
5. It provides information and recommendations about five major parasomnias that worry people (Bed-Wetting, Sleep-Talking, Sleep-Walking, Night Terrors, and Teeth-Grinding).
6. The SDIS was developped at some of the top sleep clinics/hospitals in the country such as Johns Hopkins, Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic, Carle Regional in IL, St. Petersburg Children's Hospital, FL, Miami Children's Hospital, FL., Tampa General Hospital, FL, more.....
7. At the end of the SDIS report, it provides a website where you can find a list of accredited sleep centers in your area of the United States if it appears that medical intervention will be needed.
8. Within 15 minutes, you could be on your way to solving most sleep problems that disrupt sleep and could be seriously impairing you or your child's health, cognitive functioning, learning, behaviors, and/or jeopardizing safety. It could also prevent your child from experiencing lots of sleep deprivation and struggles with irritability and poor concentration if the sleep disorder is quickly corrected! Your child/teen will feel much happier, energetic, motivated, and able to concentrate on difficult learning tasks or work once your sleep problems are improved!
A screening with the SDIS only costs $14.95 and you will receive Immediate Answers and Recommendations. If you are still uncertain about doing a sleep screening, scroll down to see what some of the professionals say about this screening inventory.
To find out more about the SDIS or do a screening on your child/teen, click the "Parent Screen Your Child" button below (even for adult screenings) or on the top right side of this page:
Testimonial of the SDIS by Dr. William Kohler, a leading Pediatric Neurologist and Sleep Specialist at the University of South Florida; Director of Pediatric Sleep Services at the Sleep Center at University Community Hospital in Tampa, and Medical Director of the Florida Sleep Institute in Spring Hill, FL has said: "The SDIS is a very accurate screening instrument for sleep disorders that has the capability of improving the quality of children's lives nationwide if professionals working with students will use it. In my sleep practice, I have personally witnessed that 95% of the children referred to me due to their high sleep problem scores on the SDIS have a sleep disorder, and the SDIS has been about 90% accurate in predicting which sleep disorder the child has!"
More Testimonials from Professionals, Parents, and Students.....
III. Important Facts about the Damage a Sleep Disorder Can Do To Your Child/Teen:
- Nearly 17% of all students in the U.S. have a correctable sleep disorder that is impairing their school performance and health, and it usually won't disappear without some form of professional treatment or parental interventions?
- Less than 2% of students with sleep disorders are identified by pediatricians or sleep specialists, treated, and corrected? This is why parents should use the reliable Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students to identify their child's sleep problems and get helpful recommendations.
- Some sleep disorders cause cognitive, memory, learning, behavior/emotional, and/or health/safety problems if not corrected in childhood. You can stop these problems before they ruin your child's school performance and future success.
- Immediate and significant improvements in behaviors and mood regulation occur in most children/teens after the sleep disorder is treated and corrected.
- A gradual, but significant improvement in GPA has been noted when many major sleep disorders are resolved?
- Children and teens with a sleep disorder are much more accident prone and three times more likely to have vehicle accidents than peers without sleep disorders.
- If some sleep disorders like Obstructive Sleep Apnea are not corrected early, these adults have a three times higher death rate by accidents or ensuing health problems (lower academic and intellectual functioning, more strokes, heart attacks, etc...).
- Adults with uncorrected sleep disorders have a significantly higher rate of job loss, disability, and welfare support than those without a sleep disorder.
III. We also offer Professional Screening Start-Up Kits for Screening Many Children/Teens
There are 3 simple steps to identifying students with major sleep disorders and improving their lives: 
- 1. Both Parents and Professionals need to Universally Screen ALL Children & Teens for the major sleep disorders impairing school performance, health, and safety. It is wise to screen each child during the preschool years between 2 1/2 yrs. and 5 yrs., again in elementary school, and a third time in adolescence because some sleep disorders develop later in childhood--> adolescence.
2. Screen with the "Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students" (SDIS) because it is the only sleep screening inventory available that screens for all of the major sleep disorders in children and teens that impair daytime performance & health.
3. If parents discover that their child/teen has high scores on one or more scales of the SDIS, they need to show this report to their child's pediatrician and they may need to take their child/teen to a pediatric sleep specialist for a comprehensive evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment, unless it is a behavioral sleep disorder. The SDIS report gives excellent recommendation to parents of children with behavioral sleep problems that can sometimes be corrected by parents and child/teen following the SDIS report recommendations.
Dr. Kathy Bradley-Klug, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Graduate Programs in School Psychology at the University of South Florida, Tampa, FL states:
"Sleep disorders were once considered a problem only in the adult population. Through her seminal research, Dr. Marsha Luginbuehl introduced knowledge of pediatric sleep disorders and their impact on the educational outcomes of youth to the fields of education and school psychology. Her research resulted in the development of the first screening instrument to be used in the school setting, the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students (SDIS). The significance of her research and the SDIS is far reaching. Approximately 70 million Americans suffer from some type of sleep disorder. Until recently, medical personnel and educators paid little attention to the impact of sleep disorders on the educational outcomes of youth. The SDIS provides educators and other professionals an instrument to screen children and adolescents for symptoms of sleep disorders and prevent the collateral academic and behavior problems often associated with sleep disorders. Dr. Luginbuehl's research has impacted children and families struggling with sleep disorders across the country. Her contributions to sleep medicine and research are recognized both nationally and internationally."
For more medical information for professionals:
Read this article found in "Modern Medicine" (03/09) about the main sleep disorders in children/adolescents, their effects on students' behaviors and performance and how they can easily be screened called "The Young and the Restless: A Pediatric Guide to Managing Sleep Problems". It makes reference to our SDIS screening tools!
Here is another article by Marsha Luginbuehl (and others), called "Pediatric Sleep Disorders: Validation of the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students" found in School Psychology Review in the Fall of 2008. It discusses our screening tool and its effectiveness in identifying potential sleep disorders.
