Tag: FASD

Consuming Alcohol During Pregnancy

November 23, 2009

A new study from Perth’s Telethon Institute for Child Health Research has found evidence that the amount and timing of alcohol consumption in pregnancy affects child behaviour in different ways.

The study has just been published online in the international journal Addiction. Lead author Colleen O’Leary said the analysis was drawn from a random sample of more than 2000 mothers who completed a questionnaire three months after the baby’s delivery, and were then followed up when the child was 2, 5 and 8 years of age.

“Mothers who reported what we would classify as heavy drinking in the first trimester ofpregnancy were nearly three times as likely to report that their child suffered with anxiety and/or depression or somatic complaints,” Ms O’Leary said. “Those who drank moderately during that first trimester were twice as likely to report those types of behavioural issues for their child.

“Exposure to moderate or heavy levels of alcohol in late pregnancy increased the risk of aggressive types of behaviours in the child. “This research suggests that both the timing and the intensity of alcohol exposure in the womb affect the type of behaviour problems expressed.”

In this study low levels of alcohol did not increase the risk of harm to the baby. However, the evidence clearly shows that the risk to the baby increases with increasing amounts consumed. “It should also be noted that in this study moderate exposure is classified as drinking 3-4 standard drinks per occasion- that’s about two normal glasses of wine-and no more than a bottle of wine drunk over a week.” Heavy drinking included women who were drinking the equivalent of more than a bottle of wine per week.

Note: I just received a letter from an adoption agency that placed one of my kids in our home for adoption, saying that their birth mother consumed 40+ ounces of alcohol a day and was addicted to cocaine during her pregnancies. She had been referred to rehabs many times but didn’t go. Why do mothers do this to their children? This is one disability, FASD, that can be prevented. Not only can the child’s future behavior be affected by the mother drinking alcohol during pregnancy, but there can be physical and mental damage as well.

Power Point by Adoptive Parent

By Val Frania

In Adoption, FAS

He's my son Click here for a Power Point that shows the story of one adoptive family’s struggle to get help for their emotionally disabled child.

Those of us with similar stories find that Michigan does not want to fund residential treatment centers though often they are the only solution for families with these types of kids. They cannot risk keeping them in the home due to safety issues.

It appears we will be losing our funding for our son’s residential treatment center at the end of November. The state would be willing to continue funding if we’d rescind our adoption and place him back in the custody of the state welfare system. Unfortunately, saving money (versus serving the best interests of a child) is their goal.

Inmate Gets Not-Guilty Ruling Due to FASD

By Val Frania

In Adoption, FAS

By Steven Elbow, The Capital Times, posted Nov. 1, 2009

Tyler Mills finally got what he wanted: a mental defect that carries some weight in court.

The 30-year-old state prison inmate last week was found not guilty of a crime because of defects caused by his exposure to alcohol when still in the womb. Experts who track court cases involving fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) say it’s the first time in Wisconsin a defendant has won a not-guilty verdict because of the array of physical and mental defects caused by alcohol use by pregnant women.

And some think it could open the door to a more enlightened approach to dealing with criminal defendants suffering the effects of the disorder. Todd Winstrom, formerly an attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin, the state-appointed advocacy group for disabled individuals, says the case sets an important precedent.

“Fetal alcohol has actually finally achieved some legal recognition in Wisconsin as a condition that could lead someone to be found not guilty by reason of insanity,” says Winstrom, who for years tried to get jails to provide Mills with the psychological and medical treatment he needed. “The hope that this gives me is that the system now will respond to Tyler and hopefully to others like him with a n approach that’s grounded more in an understanding of the disorder and some attempt to provide treatment and intervention rather than corrections and punishment.”

For Mills, its a hard-won personal victory that comes after years of disappointment.

“I think it was my stubbornness that paid off,” he says.

In early 2008, Mills was being passed from jail to jail in counties where he had committed a string of petty financial crimes, mostly stealing credit cards. He says a man he met in a federal corrections halfway house led him on the crime spree. But the charge that landed him his current seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence was child enticement. The charge stemmed from Mills’ attempt to meet up with a 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet, whom he later discovered was a police officer conducting an Internet sting operation.

An Eau Claire County jury in that case found that while his fetal alcohol defects constituted a mental disease, they didn’t cause him to commit the crime. Last week Mills appeared in Pierce County court to answer to two charges of identity theft, both for stealing ID cards. In a deal struck between his attorney and prosecutors he agreed to plead guilty to both charges. But the district attorney agreed to stipulate that on one charge he was not guilty by reason of mental defect. The judge ordered three years of commitment by the state Department of Health Services to be carried out concurrently with his current sentence, which will likely mean he will go to a mental hospital.

He’s currently appealing his Eau Claire County conviction, but if he fails he will have to spend another two years in prison to finish off his sentence in that case in addition to his mental commitment. In itself, Tyler Mill’s plea hearing was an insignificant court event, one of thousands of plea deals reached every year in Wisconsin courts. But for defendants with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which some estimate make up thousands of Wisconsin prison inmates, and their advocates, it’s a ray of hope.

The resolution would have had more impact as a precedent if it had been decided by a judge or a jury, rather than being the result of an agreement between attorneys. “It would have been better had it been on record in terms of a ruling,” says Natalie Novick Brown, a clinical psychologist at the University of Washington’s Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit. But she says that because a judge endorsed the defense argument that Mills was not guilty because of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, “We still regard it as a foot in the door.”

Brown says recent years have seen an increased volume of case law dealing with fetal alcohol issues, mostly death row cases such as a recent Nevada case where the perpetrator was spared the death penalty. One case involving a Louisiana death row inmate was even considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court eventually denied review.

“The fact that there is growing awareness in the legal system is positive,” says Novick Brown, who spends much of her time supporting the cases of criminal defendants with FASD and who has testified on behalf of Mills during his trial. The resolution of Mills’ case, she says, “is just another indication that people are paying attention to FASD as a legal argument.”

But the attorney who struck the deal on Mills’ behalf, Liesl Nelson of Hudson, questions the value of the case as a precedent. “I don’t know that it necessarily throws the door open for the next guy that comes along,” she says. But Nelson praised Pierce County District Attorney John O’Boyle, who didn’t return a phone call seeking comment, for going along with the agreement.

“I really respect a prosecutor who finally looks at this and goes, ‘Let’s do the smart thing here,'” she says. “I really give him a lot of points for that because nobody else has been able to do that yet, to say, ‘Let’s try smarter, not harder.'”

A Capital Times story in May 2008 chronicled Mills’ odyssey through the criminal justice system at a time when his appalling behavior in jails usually got him thrown into solitary confinement, which typically inspired even worse behavior. He infuriated prison officials by creating scenes, attempting suicide, spreading food and feces on the wall of his cell. He has a compulsion for eating objects like tooth brushes, razor blades and pencils, and on at least one occasion jail officials refused to provide medical treatment for complications from objects lodged in his stomach.

Mills had been facing more than 100 years in possible prison time mostly for petty financial crimes. Most of those cases have been resolved, many of them dismissed because of the time and expense it would have taken to prosecute them. Only the Pierce County case remained.

“It was the last chance he had to persuade someone that his fetal alcohol was an important factor,” says Nelson, his attorney. “That was a huge moment for him, to have somebody acknowledge that.”

It is still unclear when Mills’ mental commitment would start. He was taken from Pierce County to the Wisconsin Resource Center, the Department of Corrections program facility where he spent the last year. The center gave Mills a job, put him in classes and kept him busy every minute of the day, providing a rigid daily structure that is the only way many with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder can function. Most experts consider solitary confinement to be one of the worst possible punishments, but one Mills is all too familiar with.

As his Pierce County case wound down, the Department of Corrections was on the verge of sending Mills back to the general prison population, where if his past is any guide he would undoubtedly act out, and once again find himself alone, staring at the wall of a cell.

Nelson says after the Department of Corrections and th e Department of Health Services hashes out the details, they’ll likely send Mills to a mental treatment facility. The Corrections Department would be crazy to want him, she says. Placing him back in prison where there are no resources to deal with his behavior problems would be punishment not only to Mills, but to corrections personnel as well.

“They just don’t have the resources to deal with him.”

Things never got any better for him…

By Val Frania

In Adoption, FAS, Things I've Learned

Here is a brief description of the son of one of my Yahoo friends. I put these stories on my blog to hopefully open the eyes of those around me to some of the issues surrounding special needs adoption. Realize that just because you don’t see some of these behaviors doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Parents don’t usually share such things with family or friends because they feel a need to protect their children from the hurt of rejection. As well, we as the parents of these kids wish to be accepted and supported, but fear that if we share too much, our children and even our entire family, will be avoided and judged. So we choose to isolate ourselves rather than risk it. It’s kind of like a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Read about Mrs. Brown’s son:

RAD [attachment issues] is certainly possible in toddler age children, as is early onset bipolar. Doctors don’t like to medicate that early, as they like more time to see what is going on. My son who was adopted at age 2 1/2 was diagnosed at age 4 with severe ADHD [attention deficit hyperactive disorder] and ODD [oppositional defiant disorder], to the point of mania.

It was SO hard to get through those first months before they would medicate him at age 4. But he was a danger to himself – he was so bad off. He would run around the yard to fast he would smack right into a tree. He started out on Cylert and Clonidine to help him calm down and help him sleep (which he didn’t do much of). As he grew so did his Dx’s, to Bipolar, attachment disorders, Conduct Disorder, and something about rages; I can’t remember what they called it. To put it mildly, he was violent.

He was born alcohol and drug exposed and was premature. He had frontal lobe damage, which is the part of the brain that controls emotions. His emotions were out of control. He had to leave our home when he was 9 due to his violence, attacking my (older) daughters. He would spend his nights chewing thru his (metal) screens, ripping up floor boards, and destroying furniture.

People around here didn’t know how bad it was at home; he tried to hold it together out in public and at school for whatever reason. Then he came home and blew apart. So of course the lovely folks in this town assumed it was my fault. Even when he couldn’t hold it together at school any more and started doing more and more outrageous stuff there, they still blamed me. [They thought] I must be abusive to have a child like this. They knew his birth history, but still blamed it on me. Says alot for their intelligence, huh ?

During one of his rages, I managed to get him to the ER, where they recommended a stay in a pediatric psych unit. He never came home again. From there he went to more permanent psych hospital stays and RTCs [residential treatment centers]. Things never got any better for him. He is 19 now.

This is a typical story of an adoptive child who was adopted with serious issues. When an adoptive parent puts themself out there to bring these kids into their family and try to provide a normal, caring home, please do not blame them for the children’s behaviors or judge their parenting techniques. You have no idea what it is like to live with these kids until you have done it yourself. If you ever dared to step out and do as they have, you will undoubetedly become very sympathetic to their family. Support them, love them, and do what you can to help them. They ought to be admired, not judged. And, when they say, “My child came to us with issues that are very hard to deal with,” – believe them!

Behavior Management for Child with FASD

By Val Frania

In Educating Our Children, FAS

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR CHILD with FASD

Overview of Behavioral Issues Associated with Fetal Alcohol [Spectrum Disorder]

Specific Behavior Plan for child

I. Create rules that target specific behaviors.

II. Provide constant positive feedback when rules are not being broken.

III. Provide immediate, unemotional time-outs when a rule is broken.

IV. Adjust the environment to make it easy to follow rules.

V. Assess effectiveness of plan on a regular basis and make adjustments.

Overview of Behavioral Issues Associated with Fetal Alcohol Effects In working with and managing his behavior, it will be helpful to understand a few things about fetal alcohol affected brains:

• For most of us, the part of the brain that has impulses and the part that knows the rules are in constant easy communication. So we have an impulse to do something, we check it against what we know to be acceptable rules of behavior, and we make a conscious choice whether or not to break a rule. But in fetal alcohol affected brains, the connection between those two areas is faulty or missing. So the child has an impulse to do something, and by the time the part of the brain that knows the rules is even aware of the impulse, the action has already taken place, and most likely somebody is already yelling at the child about it. So you can have a kid who knows the rules, wants to follow the rules, is upset about breaking the rules, yet still breaks them. At the moment of action, he’s working purely on impulse.

• And since impulsive behavior is almost by definition without reason, asking a fetal alcohol affected child why he did something and not taking “I don’t know” for an answer is pretty much insisting that he lie. They don’t know why they do it. They may not even know what they did. So you’ll either get gobs of denial and defensiveness, or you’ll get a spontaneous excuse that defies credulity. Imagination and creativity are some of the positive attributes of people with FAE [FASD], but when they’re used in service of getting out of trouble, they usually result in a tall tale that makes matters worse.

• Social and emotional development lags way, way, way behind in people with FAE. Teens and young adults with FAE often have an emotional developmental age of about 6. So with an elementary-school-aged child, you have to figure they may be working at a toddler stage at best. You have to adjust everything to that level — expectations, supervision, privileges, rules, discipline. People with FAE tend to be verbal well beyond their level of understanding, and it may be tempting to assume that that clever and talkative child is able to understand social rules at a much more sophisticated level. It’s a mistake.

• Stress makes things worse. A confusing thing with FAE [FASD] kids is that sometimes they seem to be able to do things and sometimes they don’t, and it’s natural to assume that that indicates willfulness. But in fact their ability to control their behavior declines in proportion to the amount of stress they are experiencing. This can be obvious stress — a noisy place, difficult schoolwork, disruptions of routine — or less obvious, particularly in kids with sensory integration problems who react to things in the environment the rest of us wouldn’t even notice. Sometimes the loss of control happens well after a stressful event — if a child uses up a lot of resources getting through something hard early in the day, he may run out of control late in the day. Because of these relatively unchangeable facts of an FAE [FASD] child’s life, strategies that rely on self-control and presume willfulness; that require an advanced level of maturity and responsibility; or that increase the level of stress will be ineffective at best and may in fact escalate bad behavior.

These may include:

• Negative consequences.

• Big positive consequences.

• Escalating consequences.

• Nagging to stop behavior.

• Pressure not to break rules.

• Abstract rules like “Be respectful.”

• A choice offered between compliance and negative consequence.

• Behavior modification On the other hand, strategies that do not presume control; that don’t put undue weight on behavioral slip-ups; that are suited to the child’s level of emotional maturity; and that decrease the level of stress will be more effective, and at the least will not escalate bad behavior.

These may include:

• Positive consequences, on a modest scale, delivered immediately.

• Distraction from misbehavior.

• Brief time-outs, delivered consistently and matter-of-factly.

• Changing of environment to make success more likely.

• Behavior analysis to assist in changing of environment.

• Constant positive feedback and encouragement.

• Specific rules like “No hitting.”

• Choices in which both options are acceptable to adult.

• Behavior management

To read more of this article click here. Thanks, Jill for the info.

Those Who Did Neither

By Val Frania

In Adoption, FAS, Things I've Learned

I have joined three Yahoo Groups – One for families of FASD children, one for those trying access post-adopt services, and one for those who have disrupted or dissolved their adoptions. The last one I joined to get a proper perspective of those who have willingly or by force been affected by adoption disruption/dissolution. With permission of the writers, I will be featuring some of these stories in days to come. One adoptive mom in particular tugged at my heart strings when she questioned whether she’d made the right decision by not fighting those who were demanding her parental rights be terminated. She would not allow her son to come back home after months in residential – she knew his repeated threats to kill the family would be carried out if allowed back home. So rather than working with the family within reasonable parameters, the powers that be dissolved this family against the wishes of each individual person in that family. Those powers were responsible for bringing to fruition that which they fought against.

Here is my response to her:

“I am very interested in your story and feel it needs to be told as much as a so called ‘successful one’ must be told – maybe more so. We cannot enjoy the blessings of this world if we do not have anything to compare them to. It would also be of benefit for others to see the emotional and physical expenditures of those who hope to save a life through adoption. It should not be seen as serving ourselves, rather it must be seen as a service to our world, whether in service to mankind locally or over seas. I forever regret the pain we have endured at the hands of those who have no understanding of what we do as adoptive parents – yet I do not count it worthy to dwell on it either, simply because I did not do this for praise of man. The approval of my God is all I ought to consider – for it is everything. Though I doubt and wince, I do not fall at the feet of my critics. They will some day answer to my God – the One who called me to serve Him by loving children that were not considered worthy of my attention. Whether you cherished a child for a day or for their life time, you are counted more worthy than those who did neither.”