Interventions for children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs): overview of findings for five innovative research projects.
Five practical FASD interventions still stand the test of time: teach parents, teach kids, and tie services together.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bertrand (2009) looked at five brand-new projects that tried to help kids with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
The paper is a narrative review, so it tells the story of each project instead of crunching pooled numbers.
All five tested practical packages that mixed parent coaching, child skill lessons, and help getting school services.
What they found
Every project reported that kids got better in at least one measured area.
Four of the five showed statistically significant gains, though the review does not give effect sizes.
The common winning ingredients were teaching parents first, then kids, and linking both to schools or clinics.
How this fits with other research
Benallal et al. (2026) later rounded up the same parent-training ideas and found they still work, so the 2009 tips hold up.
Pei et al. (2017) tracked families after they got the kinds of advice Jacquelyn listed and showed most families actually use the school and therapy referrals, proving the 2009 suggestions are doable.
Cruz-Montecinos et al. (2024) zoomed in on one tactic praised in 2009—stacking antecedent tweaks—and showed parents still use them months later, extending the earlier call for parent-led supports.
Why it matters
You now have five concrete programs to suggest when an FASD assessment lands on your desk.
Lead with parent training, add child skill drills, and lock in school supports—the combo that keeps paying off in later studies.
Start by picking one parent-mediated module this week; you will already be using evidence-based practice.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
It is well established that prenatal exposure to alcohol causes damage to the developing fetus, resulting in a spectrum of disorders known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). Although our understanding of the deficits and disturbances associated with FASDs is far from complete, there are consistent findings indicating these are serious, lifelong disabilities-especially when these disabilities result from central nervous system damage. Until recently, information and strategies for interventions specific to individuals with FASDs have been gleaned from interventions used with people with other disabilities and from the practical wisdom gained by parents and clinicians through trial and error or shared through informal networks. Although informative to a limited degree, such interventions have been implemented without being evaluated systematically or scientifically. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of a general intervention framework developed for individuals with FASDs and the methods and general findings of five specific intervention research studies conducted within this framework. The studies evaluated five different interventions in five diverse locations in the United States, with different segments of the FASD population. Nonetheless, all participants showed improvement in the target behaviors or skills, with four studies achieving statistical significance in treatment outcomes. Important lessons emerged from these five interventions that may explain success: including parent education or training, teaching children specific skills they would usually learn by observation or abstraction, and integration into existing systems of treatment. A major implication of these research studies for families dealing with FASDs is that there are now interventions available that can address their children's needs and that can be presented as scientifically validated and efficacious to intervention agents such as schools, social services, and mental health providers. In the field of FASD research and clinical service, a common theme reported by families has been that clinicians and professionals have been reluctant to diagnose their children because there were no known effective treatments. Results of these five studies dispel that concern by demonstrating several interventions that have been shown to improve the lives of individuals with FASDs and their families.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2009 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.02.003