Prenatal alcohol exposure has effects far beyond fetal alcoho...( problems that interfere with their acad...),Health

"There is as of yet little public awareness or understanding of the behavioral teratologic sequelae of fetal alcohol exposure, such as the cognitive deficits found here in children who do not exhibit the physical markers of FAS," concurred Lynn T. Singer, Deputy Provost and Vice President for Academic Programs at Case Western Reserve University. "This study is seminal in that it demonstrates that what was interpreted in prior studies as a lack of any IQ effects in nonsyndromal, alcohol-exposed children was really due to a differential effect of exposure related to several risk/protective factors studied by these researchers."

"The incidence and severity of FAS and ARND vary considerably among children with similar prenatal exposures," added Jacobson. "Despite extensive interest in the differential susceptibility attributed to influences ranging from genetic predisposition to nutritional inadequacy, there has been relatively little systematic empirical investigation of the factors that may determine which children are affected."

Researchers administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-III (WISC-III) to 337 inner-city African American children at 7.5 years of age whose mothers were recruited prenatally. (The WISC-III is the most commonly used standardized test of IQ administered to children ages 6 - 17 years.) Alcohol exposure was assessed using a timeline, follow-back interview that was administered to the mothers at every prenatal clinic visit. Numerous potential confounding variables were examined, including maternal education and IQ, smoking and illicit drug use, quality of parenting, maternal depression and psychopathology, and current maternal drinking. Researchers also used the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) to assess severity of psychosocial and physical alcohol-related problems.

"This study is the first to demonstrate
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14-Nov-2004