Marsha Luginbuehl received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from the University of Kansas, and Master of Arts, Educational Specialist, and Doctor of Philosophy Degrees from the University of South Florida in School Psychology with emphases in Pediatric Psychology and Family Therapy. She has practiced school psychology in the Pasco County, FL School District since 1987, as well as provided private practice consultation, counseling, and assessment since 1995. She is a Nationally Certified and Privately Licensed School Psychologist specializing in pediatric sleep disorders.

Dr. Luginbuehl with her husband and six grandchildren.

While in the Ph.D. program at the University of South Florida, Dr. Luginbuehl extensively researched the field of pediatric sleep disorders and collaborated with nationally-known sleep specialists and psychologists to complete her Dissertation. It is entitled “The Development and Validation of the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students ( SDIS)”. For her exceptional dissertation work developing the SDIS, Dr. Luginbuehl won the American Psychological Association's "2003 Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award"! Dr. Luginbuehl was highly motivated to develop a sleep screening inventory for children due to the poor screening process existing nationally and internationally. Less than 2% of all children with sleep disorders are identified and treated, resulting in the other 98-99% experiencing many difficulties caused by their sleep disorders such as academic, behavioral, emotional, health, and safety problems.

Sleep disorders are prevalent in the Knapp-Luginbuehl family, which have provided Dr. Luginbuehl with much unwanted first-hand experience in learning about the negative impact of sleep disorders on a child’s functioning and a family’s well-being. Her father died, never knowing he had Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS). Her son had significant OSAS that was only identified when he was 18 years of age and corrected at 19 years, resulting in many incorrect diagnoses as a child and adolescent, such as ADHD, Specific Learning Disability, and severe Depression. After correction of the OSAS, Matt has improved tremendously and is enjoying a successful career as sergeant in the military and has a happy family life with his wife and daughter. Dr. Luginbuehl’s first granddaughter almost died of an apnea event at one week of age. In spite of this near SIDS event, physicians would not consider correcting Maia’s sleep apnea until they were shown her scores on the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students-Children’s Form, which demonstrated the severity of her sleep disorder and convinced them to do an adenotonsillectomy when Maia was four years old. This surgery corrected Maia’s many nighttime apnea events and resulted in a much more alert, happy girl with significant improvements in her behaviors. Dr. Luginbuehl’s fifth grandchild, Eden, died in her sleep at 3 ½ months of age. Dr. Luginbuehl is all too aware of the damaging, and sometimes life-threatening impact of sleep disorders on children. Dr. Luginbuehl says, “Sleep Disorders should never be ignored when they are now so easy to screen for, identify, and correct!”

Dr. Luginbuehl has provided numerous presentations about pediatric sleep disorders to school psychologists, school nurses, counselors, and sleep specialists at local, state, and national conventions and seminars. She has published her dissertation, as well as three abstracts for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), and is presently working on several professional journal articles about the development and validation of the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students (SDIS). Some of these publications also presented the negative impact of sleep disorders on students’ achievement and behaviors that were documented while developing the SDIS, as well as the improvement in Grade Point Average and behaviors after the sleep disorders were corrected.

In a 2001-2003 research study by Luginbuehl, results of data taken from 595 students nation-wide indicated that there is a strong correlation between Grade Point Average (GPA) and sleep problems: the more sleep problems students had, the lower their GPA’s were. Furthermore, the more sleep problems children had, the more behavior problems they exhibited than students without sleep problems/disorders; the less sleep problems students had, the higher their GPAs were and they presented significantly less behavior problems than students with sleep disorders. In the sample where the sleep problems were corrected, GPA gradually, but significantly improved within a 1 - 2 year time period if the student was not mentally handicapped. Furthermore, for the students whose sleep problems were corrected (~70%), their behavior problems decreased significantly in 11-of-12 areas: distractibility, impulsivity, high activity level, irritability, tantrums, withdrawal, depression, moodiness, aggression, oppositional/defiance, and frustration; shyness did not change. For the 30% whose sleep disorders were only partially corrected or not corrected at all, the parents reported little or no improvements in behaviors.

In conclusion, Dr. Luginbuehl gives the following advise to all parents:

“If you suspicion your child has a sleep problem, find out immediately by screening your child with the SDIS. If it suggests the possibility of a sleep disorder, please consider consulting with your child’s pediatrician or a pediatric sleep specialist. It could be one of the most important things you can do to help your child succeed in school and in life. Even more critical, it could actually SAVE YOUR CHILD’S LIFE!”