Information about ''family matters'' is vital to developing targeted interventions, reducing placement disruption, and enhancing outcome in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The quality of the caregiving environment and family function are associated with long-term outcome in natural history study of individuals with FASD. This article integrates multiple information sources to better understand the role of family factors in the outcome of individuals with FASD, and how the family is affected by raising a child with this lifelong condition. A brief description of the useful informal literature is brought together with a review of the surprisingly limited body of systematic research findings on FASD and caregiver/family function, and new data describing children with FASD and characteristics of their caregivers. Directions for future data-gathering and intervention development emerge from combining what is already known with an exploration of what can be learned from a highly targeted review of family-related data in the wide-ranging, general literature on developmental disabilities, and use of a proposed conceptual framework that joins a developmental systems perspective with a family systems approach.

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) present with a wide range of developmental disabilities; however, clinical standards of care after a diagnosis are not well established. This retrospective review summarizes the types of intervention recommendations generated by an interdisciplinary FASD diagnostic team for 120 children ages 0.2 to 16.5 years receiving an FASD diagnosis at the University of Washington FAS Diagnostic & Prevention Network Clinic. Intervention recommendations documented in a FASD diagnostic summary report and submitted to each patient's medical record were subject to masked review and content analysis. Intervention recommendations were compared across 3 FASD diagnostic groups and selected demographic variables. The results show the type and frequency of services, supports, and resources recommended to a clinical sample of children with FASD.