Associations between fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and other conditions have been reported, but the links between FAS and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) remain unclear. This study explored the relationship between FAS and ASD in individuals attending a specialist diagnostic clinic. Consecutive referrals over 24 months to a specialist neurodevelopmental clinic were evaluated using gold standard methods for FAS diagnosis and ASD. The first 18-month cohort who met criteria for ASD were compared with controls attending the same clinic but who had not experienced prenatal alcohol exposure (nested data). Data for the whole group were also collected. Twenty-one fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) individuals were assessed and 16 (72%) met ICD-10 criteria for childhood autism. Further significant differences between the prenatally exposed and non-exposed group with ASD were found in the nested study. The research shows an association between heavy prenatal alcohol exposure and ASD. As this is a small sample in a specialist clinic, the study suggests that a larger, more population-based study of those exposed to heavy prenatal alcohol is warranted.

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In this article, we examine whether and how the institutional context matters when understanding individuals’ giving to philanthropic organizations. We posit that both the individuals’ propensity to give and the amounts given are higher in countries with a stronger institutional context for philanthropy. We examine key factors of formal and informal institutional contexts for philanthropy at both the organizational and societal levels, including regulatory and legislative frameworks, professional standards, and social practices. Our results show that while aggregate levels of giving are higher in countries with stronger institutionalization, multilevel analyses of 118,788 individuals in 19 countries show limited support for the hypothesized relationships between institutional context and philanthropy. The findings suggest the need for better comparative data to understand the complex and dynamic influences of institutional contexts on charitable giving. This, in turn, would support the development of evidence-based practices and policies in the field of global philanthropy.

The aim of this paper is to examine the factors underlying philanthropic behavior in Mexico. In particular, we analyze the influence of social capital on two types of behavior: giving and volunteering. This research is based upon groundbreaking national public opinion surveys conducted in 2005 and 2008, the first of their kind in Mexico to focus on donations and volunteerism. We find that membership in associations (an important component of social capital) is strongly and positively associated with secular giving and volunteering. We also tested the role of three other aspects of social capital: participation in informal personal networks, a belief in the norm of reciprocity, and interpersonal trust, and our findings show that the former two have a consistently significant effect on our dependent variables but interpersonal trust does not. We discuss the implications of this for a society where trust in others is comparatively low. Differences between Mexico and the USA, for example, highlight the importance of context in philanthropic behavior. Mexicans' religiosity also stands out as an important variable, particularly when it comes to understanding religious forms of giving and volunteering in the country. The practical significance of our findings for the promotion of philanthropy is that Mexican nonprofits must compensate for being in a low‐trust culture by encouraging membership and a sense of group belonging. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.