Abstract

The first few years of life are crucial for establishing adequate sleep duration and boosting the development of the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s basis for executive functions (EF). This study aimed to analyse the association between sleep duration and EF in preschoolers. This study included 83 preschool children (50.6% boys, mean age 53.5 ± 8.1 months). Physical activity (PE) was assessed using the Go/No-Go paradigm from the Early Tool Box battery. For analyses, the Go inverse efficiency (IE), computed by reaction time/Go accuracy, and the No-Go accuracy were considered. Sleep duration, sex, and age data were collected through a face-to-face interview with children’s parents. To assess the associations between sleep duration and EF, considering sex and age as covariates, a structural equation model was performed using multivariate linear regression analyses. The results showed a negative association was observed between sleep duration and IE (? = -0.264; p = 0.013). In this way, longer sleep in preschoolers predicted the IE. The model explained 8.4% of the variability in the IE and 17.8% of the variability in No-Go accuracy. These results suggest that improvements in preschoolers’ EF may be linked to sleep duration, especially for skills related to information processing and maintenance of attention. © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.