FASE- Fetal Alcohol Primary and Secondary Issues

B R E A K I N G D O W N B R I C K W A L L S F O R F A S D

What Kinds of Damage
Can Occur From Alcohol In Utero Exposure?

Bruce Ritchie - The Triumf Project

In Utero Damage Can Include These Primary Disabilities
Disabilities a child is born with

Developmental speech and language disorder	Developmental coordination disorder	Central auditory processing disorder	Loss of intellectual functioning (IQ)	Severe loss of intellectual potential	Mental Retardation
Rigidity	Epilepsy	Deafness	Cleft palate	Night terrors	Death
Sleep disorder	Tourette's traits	Asthma	Precocious puberty	Sociopathic behavior	Serious maxilo-facial deformities
Tremors	Immune system malfunctioning	Poor judgment	Renal (liver) failure	Cerebral palsy	Complex seizure disorder
Developmental delay	Height and weight deficiencies	Tight hamstrings	Cognitive perseveration	Adaptive esotropia	Heart failure Heart defects
ADD/ADHD Attention deficit disorders	Dental abnormalities	Mild to severe vision problems	Higher than normal to dangerously high pain tolerance	Little or no capacity for interpersonal empathy	Little or no retained memory
Little or no capacity for moral judgment	Echolalia	Autistic traits	Extreme impulsiveness	Dyslexia	Hypersensitivity

And these secondary disabilities
Develop as a result of failure to properly deal with the primary disabilities

Learning disabilities	Early school drop-out	Juvenile delinquency	Poverty	Chronic unemployment	Sexual acting-out
Social problems	Behavioral problems	Reactive Outbursts	Homelessness	Violence	Crimes against property
Depression	Prostitution	Suicide	Addiction	Alcoholism	Promiscuity
	Sexual assault	Mental illness	Early pregnancy

The majority of FASD individuals will
display many or even all of these symptoms.

FASD is a lifetime disability. It is not curable. A child does not "grow out of it". However, early diagnosis and intensive, and appropriate, intervention can make an enormous difference in the prognosis for the child. There is a small window of opportunity; up to about age 10 or 12, to achieve the greatest potential for an alcohol affected child. That period is when the greatest development of fixed neural pathways occurs. That is when alternative "coping" pathways are most easily built as "work-arounds" to damaged areas of the brain. Time is of the essence

While FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effects) individuals may lack the outward physical appearance of alcohol damage, and generally have higher IQ's, the internal damage to the brain and other organs can be just as serious as full FAS. IQ measures convergent fact based thinking. Life skills require divergent adaptive thinking that in FAE individuals will be substantially lower than their IQ. However, because FAE individuals "look normal" they are expected to perform normally. These issues lead to secondary disabilities. Primary disabilities are those the child is born with. Secondary disabilities are those that develop as a result of failure to properly deal with the primary disabilities.