Far More U.S. Children Than Previously Thought May Have Fetal Alcohol Disorders
“But the major limitations in the study design render the results, for the most part, uninterpretable.”
The authors of the study, which was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, acknowledged the study’s limitations and tried to partly compensate by providing a conservative estimate (of 1.1 percent to 5 percent)
that is likely low and another estimate (of 3.1 percent to 9.9 percent) that is likely high.
“This is an equally common, or more common, disorder and one that’s completely preventable and one
that we are missing,” said Christina Chambers, one of the study authors and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego.
“It’s kind of like the hidden problem,” said Dr. Howard Taras, a study author
and professor at the University of California, San Diego, who is the physician for the San Diego Unified School District, which participated in the study.
Even if educational approaches might resemble those for other special needs children, the diagnosis tells teachers behavior problems are “not because this child is disobedient, it’s because of some neurological disorder,” said Dr. Svetlana Popova, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health’s Institute for Mental Health Policy Research in Toronto, who was a co-author of an editorial about the new study.
“When you identify a kid with FASD, you’ve just identified a mom who drank during pregnancy
and harmed her child,” said Susan Astley, director of the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Diagnostic and Prevention Network at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study.
Of 2,962 children evaluated, the researchers identified 222 with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Dr.
All but two of them had not been previously diagnosed, although the authors said many
parents had been aware their children had learning and behavioral difficulties.
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