Adolescent Sleep: Understanding the Shift and Supporting Families
As behavior analysts, we often focus on early childhood development, but sleep challenges don’t disappear as learners grow. Adolescents—especially autistic adolescents—experience biological shifts in sleep timing that must be acknowledged and supported. Many families struggle with long bedtime battles, excessive sleep latency, and unsustainable sleep dependencies because their child’s sleep needs are being treated as developmental rather than biological.
Let’s explore what’s happening inside the adolescent brain and how BCBAs can help caregivers set realistic expectations and establish more sustainable sleep practices.
The Adolescent Sleep Phase Shift
By now, most parents and professionals have heard that teenagers tend to stay up later—but this isn’t just a behavioral issue or a product of increased screen time. The adolescent brain undergoes a biological shift that pushes sleep onset later into the evening. This shift has been documented well before the rise of smartphones, computers, and social media, and it is presumed to be influenced by increased light sensitivity and hormonal changes during puberty.
What Does This Mean?
✔ Later Bedtimes Are Developmentally Normal – Most adolescents experience a natural delay in melatonin production, making it difficult to fall asleep before 10:30 or 11:00 PM. This is not a lack of discipline or poor habits—it’s biology.
✔ Early Bedtimes Can Backfire – When caregivers try to enforce early bedtimes that don’t align with biological sleep patterns, adolescents may experience:
Excessive sleep latency (taking 1+ hours to fall asleep)
Increased sleep dependency (needing caregivers to lie with them)
Increased bedtime frustration and resistance
✔ Sleeping-In Doesn’t “Fix” Sleep Debt – While sleeping in on weekends might feel good, it disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm and makes it harder to maintain a consistent sleep schedule. Encourage caregivers to limit sleep-in time to no more than an hour past usual wake-up time.
Why This Matters for Autistic Adolescents
For the autism community, sleep is biological—not developmental. Many autistic teens enjoy activities that are traditionally associated with younger children, leading caregivers to assume they should still have early bedtimes. But regardless of developmental level, the body’s sleep phase shift in puberty applies to all teens.
Too often, caregivers put their teens to bed too early based on developmental characteristics rather than biological needs. This mismatch can create long, drawn-out sleep struggles, making bedtime stressful for everyone.
How BCBAs Can Support Families
Helping families reframe adolescent sleep changes as positive and developmentally appropriate can reduce frustration and improve overall sleep hygiene. Here’s how:
1. Offer a Later Bedtime If Sleep Latency Is a Problem
If a teen is consistently taking over an hour to fall asleep, adjusting bedtime later may actually improve total sleep duration.
Many families find that once the right bedtime is established, sleep onset happens in just 10-20 minutes instead of hours.
2. Help Families Plan for More Evening “Down-Time”
If bedtime is moved later, caregivers may need to fill that extra time with meaningful, calming activities.
Help families identify appropriate evening routines based on the learner’s cognitive abilities and sensory preferences. Options may include:
Listening to audiobooks or soft music
Engaging in closed-ended, calming activities (put-ins, drawing, puzzles)
Light stretching or deep-pressure input activities
3. Promote Sleep Routines for Teens, Too
Many families assume bedtime routines are only for younger children, but teens need structured sleep cues as well.
Encourage caregivers to create a predictable, dimly-lit pre-sleep routine, such as:
Turning off overhead lights
Engaging in non-stimulating, screen-free activities
Keeping wake-up times consistent, even on weekends
The Takeaway
Teenagers—autistic or not—are biologically wired to stay up later. By supporting caregivers in adjusting expectations, shifting bedtimes strategically, and creating appropriate evening routines, BCBAs can help reduce bedtime struggles and improve sleep efficiency.
Want to dive deeper into sleep strategies that actually work? The Sleep Collective trains BCBAs to develop ethical, evidence-based sleep plans that transform the lives of learners and their families.
Let’s change the way we approach adolescent sleep—one well-rested learner at a time.
