Children of Alcoholic Mothers: Developmental, Perceptual and Behavioural Characteristics as Compared to Matched Controls

Abstract

From a retrospective material including all the 103 children of 30 alcoholic women, the 21 youngest born 1970-76, were paired to controls matched for sex, age, birth weight, gestational age and living area. IQ scores were measured with Griffiths and WISC scales. Controls tested within the normal range for Swedish children, while the study group scored 15-19 IQ points below controls (p less than 0.01), the means of the study group corresponding to -1.6 SD below means of the controls. Significant differences between the groups were found in all subscales. Visual perception was measured with Frostig's test. Perceptual age was generally equal to mental age except in the most severely affected cases where perceptional age was lower than mental age. A marked perceptual delay exceeding 1 year was found in 8/17 tested cases in the study group, while all controls were normal. Developmental levels evaluated from Human Figure Drawings according to Koppitz was in accordance with IQ test results. Indicators of emotional instability were found significantly more often in the study group than in controls. Hyperactivity, distractability and short attention span were found in 12/21 cases and perseveration in 6/21 cases but not among controls. Members of the study group with traits of the fetal alcohol syndrome (10/21) had significantly lower IQ and perceptual delay was more pronounced than in members without such signs. No significant IQ difference was found between subjects reared in foster homes and in biological homes.

Psychosocial Outcomes of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Adulthood

“…[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Together they constituted this study group consisting of 79 individuals (63% men) with an FAS diagnosis, 1,29 which required (1) a documented history of alcohol abuse during pregnancy, (2) a characteristic pattern of facial anomalies, (3) growth retardation, and (4) neurodevelopmental abnormalities of the central nervous system. The FAS group was followed up in national registers in 2011 when they had a mean age of 32 years (18- …”

“…Based on these studies, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and others, 6,10,11,14,16 we expected that the FAS group would have experienced more problems in school, limited career options, mental illness, alcohol abuse, use of illicit drugs, and trouble with the law than majority population peers. Therefore, this record-linkage study investigated possible secondary disabilities focused on outcome variables like these among the study cohort and compared them with a population matched by age, gender, and location.…”

“…The participants in this follow-up study consisted of 79 adults with a verified FAS diagnosis; some of them participated in previous studies [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] on physical and psychosocial development. Based on these studies, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and others, 6,10,11,14,16 we expected that the FAS group would have experienced more problems in school, limited career options, mental illness, alcohol abuse, use of illicit drugs, and trouble with the law than majority population peers.…”

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and Childhood Behavior at Age 6 to 7 Years: I. Dose-Response Effect

“…S ixteen percent of the children born in the United States are exposed prenatally to alcohol, 1 making alcohol the most common neurobehavioral teratogen. 2 Whereas the earliest reports of neurobehavioral toxicity related to drinking during pregnancy were described among children of alcoholic mothers, [3][4][5] more recent research suggested deleterious outcomes for children who are exposed prenatally to moderate amounts of alcohol. 6 -8 Jacobson and Jacobson, 9 in their review of prenatal alcohol exposure and neurobehavioral development, suggested that even the smallest dose may adversely affect the fetus.…”

Prospective, longitudinal assessment of developmental neurotoxicity.

“…Cross-sectional pilot studies focusing on highly exposed individuals can be valuable for identifying the most salient domains of impairment so that prospectively administered test batteries can be designed to focus on them. For example, attention deficits were first identified retrospectively in normal intelligence children of mothers known to have drunk alcohol during pregnancy on the basis of school records describing the children as hyperactive, easily distractible, and having a short attention span (65,66). Although the absence of prospective ascertainment of exposure makes the findings necessarily tentative, confirmation can subsequently be sought in a prospective study.…”