Since 1996, I have seen more well-meaning caregivers and professionals in my psychology practice unwittingly struggle against Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, or FASD, than I care to remember. They want their child or student or client to succeed, but more often than not, their efforts fall flat, backfire, or worst of all, go to waste. Over time, they become frustrated, angry and demoralized because their person with FASD “just won’t cooperate”–and these are the people who know something about this elusive disability.

For those who don’t know, FASD is an umbrella term for a fully preventable public health crisis caused when mothers drink alcohol during pregnancy. The alcohol permanently garbles a developing child’s brain circuits, creating subtle brain damage that causes mental disorders, poor school functioning, trouble with the law, chemical abuse, employment problems, and more. To make matters worse, many people with FASD look completely normal and are either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

We’re talking about a lot of special needs people here. About one in eight pregnant women drinks alcohol in the U.S. and 40,000 infants per year may be born with FASD. Well over three-quarters of a million individuals under age 21 are estimated to have some form of FASD–a prevalence rate exceeding that of Autism Spectrum Disorders. So, a lot of people need to know about FASD… not just family members, but physicians, child care workers, teachers, counselors, social workers, foster parents and anyone else working with children. Since FASD doesn’t go away in adulthood, add in job counselors, courts, disability workers and more. Their services are costly too–lifetime FASD healthcare costs alone are estimated at $800,000 per person. Full awareness and appropriate interventions are essential to reduce the personal, social, and financial costs of FASD.

Various agencies, though on the right track, have only begun public awareness campaigns. Experts, though well-educated, can’t articulate FASD in a practical way. Current books about FASD, though well-intentioned, are too technical, impractical, or anecdotal to promote best practices. The end result is that families and professionals are stymied and discouraged about helping people with FASD.

The FASD community has not yet articulated the disorder in a useful way, which accounts for books on Autism representing up to 35% of the “special needs children” shelves in bookstores versus the less than 1% on FASD, despite similar prevalence rates. FASD has remained elusive and vague, with no checklists, no workbooks, nor any guiding framework to define or contextualize it… until now.

This is the reason for the FASD Elephant Podcast: To change the way people think about FASD and provide concrete understanding and ideas about how to make things better for an individual or family that is suffering from its effects.

Thank you for joining me in this forum. I hope you learn something new, give me feedback and comments for improvement, and share this information with everyone who might need it.

Michael L. Harris (07-04-2007)

More on FASD

Okay, if you’re still hankering for more information about FASD (even after listening to the podcast), there are FASD-related links on the page “FASD Resources” — just click on that tab near the top of this page.