FAS in Internationally Adopted Children

Newsletter #64 for Internationally Adopting Parents
June 14, 2007
PAL Center Inc.

New Articles

New Publications

B. Gindis Ph.D.
A. Kozulin Ph.D.

Sociocultural Theory
and Education of Children
with Special Needs:
From Defectology to Remedial Pedagogy

In: H. Daniels, M. Cole,
J. Wertsch, Eds.
The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky

Cambridge University Press, NY 2007, pp. 332-363

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From Our Database

FAS in Internationally Adopted Children
B. Gindis Ph.D.

Introduction

An Alcohol-Related Neuro-developmental Disorder (ARND) - is a well-known and well-researched affliction. The extreme degree of this disorder is commonly known as FAS - Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The specificity of FAS in post-institutional children adopted internationally from Eastern Europe (mostly from the republics of former Soviet Union), is much less researched and less known and is the subject of this article. It is based on my own clinical experience working with international adoptees (IA) since 1992 at the BGCenter (Nanuet, NY). In the database of our center there are over 80 clinical cases of adopted children diagnosed with a different degree of ARND, who went through a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment between 2000 and 2007. Over 20% of these children were repeatedly evaluated over the years to monitor the dynamic of their development; they constitute the so-called longitudinal cases. My observations and commentary are based on these data.

Specificity of FAS in IA children in comparison with FAS children at large

FAS in IA children presents specific difficulties with diagnosis; characteristics of the "secondary disabilities" (social consequences of child's primary neurological impairment) are more extreme; an abrupt native language loss by an IA child after the adoption accelerates and amplifies typical FAS symptoms; IA children suffering from FAS seem to have a certain cognitive profile in comparison with FAS population at large.

Read the entire article

Questions and answers about FAS