Table 2.

Summary of neuropsychological deficits seen in individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Results are presented in comparison to typically developing controls and, when available, children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and non-exposed IQ-matched children.

Cognitive Domain	Compared to typically developing controls	Compared to ADHD	Compared to IQ-matched
General intelligence	Common finding related to FASD (Mattson et al., 2011) Degree of impairment is dependent upon diagnosis on the spectrum FAS most severely impacted (Ferreira and Cruz, 2017) Intellectual impairment is not dependent upon the presence of facial dysmorphology (Mattson et al., 1997)	Children with FASD typically have significantly lower IQ scores than those with ADHD (Vaurio et al., 2008)
Motor skills	Deficits in balance, fine motor control (Connor et al., 2006), and hand-eye coordination (Adnams et al., 2001) are associated with FASD Assessment of both fine and gross motor skills should be included in diagnostic assessment (Kalberg et al., 2006, Lucas et al., 2014)		Similar performances on fine motor skill measures (Vaurio et al., 2011)
Attention	Deficits in establishing, organizing, and sustaining attention (Nanson and Hiscock, 1990, Kodituwakku et al., 1995, Streissguth et al., 1994) Visual attention is more impaired than auditory attention (Coles et al., 2002; (Mattson et al., 2006) Attention measures are able to distinguish those with prenatal alcohol exposure from controls (Lee et al., 2004)	FASD associated with greater impairments in encoding and shifting attention (Coles et al., 1997) Children with ADHD display deficits in focusing and sustaining attention (Coles et al., 1997)	Similar visual attention deficits observed in both groups (Vaurio et al., 2011)
Executive function	Significant deficits are observed in children with FASD in several executive function domains including: Verbal fluency (Schonfeld et al., 2001), Inhibition (Connor et al., 2000, Mattson et al., 1999) Problem solving and planning (Green et al., 2009, Kodituwakku et al., 1995, Mattson et al., 1999) Concept formation (McGee et al., 2008) Set-shifting (McGee et al., 2008) Working memory (Aragón et al., 2008)	Both clinical groups present with executive dysfunction FASD is associated with greater deficits in working memory, planning, fluency, and set-shifting (Kingdon et al., 2016)	Performance on executive function assessments is similar (Vaurio et al., 2011)
Language	Deficits found with both expressive and receptive language (Wyper and Rasmussen, 2011, Gentry et al., 1998, Akbarian, 1992) Impaired language skills including articulation (Becker et al., 1990), grammatical ability (Thorne, 2017), and expressive and receptive skills (Church et al., 1997) Severity of deficits observed appear to change with age (Carney and Chermak, 1991)		Similar deficits of expressive and receptive language abilities (McGee et al., 2009)
Learning and Memory	Impairment is observed in the encoding, recall (Crocker et al., 2011, Mattson and Roebuck, 2002, Lewis et al., 2015, Willoughby et al., 2008), and discrimination (Mattson et al., 1998) of verbal information Inconsistent deficits found with nonverbal tasks (Uecker and Nadel, 1996, Olson et al., 1998) but nonverbal learning and recall appear affected (Mattson and Roebuck, 2002) Animal models show that deficits in spatial learning and memory are apparent in relation to alcohol exposure (Berman and Hannigan, 2000)	Both clinical groups display impaired delayed recall of verbal materials (Crocker et al., 2011) Children with ADHD additionally experience a deficit in the retention of learned information (Crocker et al., 2011)	Children with FASD have increased deficits on verbal learning tasks compared to IQ-matched children (Vaurio et al., 2011) Similar performance is found in the retention of verbal materials between the two groups (Vaurio et al., 2011) Deficits in nonverbal learning and memory tasks were present even after controlling for IQ (Coles et al., 2010)
Visual spatial abilities	Impairments are found in visual perception and construction tasks (Mattson et al., 1996) Visual-spatial skills appear to account for the difficulties found in other domains such as visual memory (Kaemingk and Halverson, 2000)	Greater deficits in visual spatial-skills are reported for alcohol-exposed children in comparison to children with ADHD (Coles et al., 1997)
Adaptive functioning	Deficits in communication, socialization, and daily living skills are commonly reported (Carr et al., 2010, Crocker et al., 2009, Jirikowic et al., 2008a, Streissguth et al., 2004) Deficits occur across development (Carr et al., 2010, Panczakiewicz et al., 2016) Performance in communication and socialization domains decreases with age (Whaley et al., 2001, Crocker et al., 2009, Thomas et al., 1998) Related to high rates of inappropriate sexual behavior, disrupted school experience, alcohol and drug problems, and decreased independent living observed among individuals with FASD (Streissguth et al., 2004)	Impaired adaptive functioning skills are found for both clinical groups Alcohol-exposed children display an arrest in development whereas adaptive skills improve with age for children with ADHD (Crocker et al., 2009).	Children with FASD score lower on adaptive functioning measures compared to IQ-matched children (Fagerlund et al., 2012)
Academic performance	High rates of suspension, expulsion, and school drop-out are reported with FASD (Streissguth et al., 1996, Streissguth et al., 2004, Popova et al., 2016a) Deficits in mathematical ability are found (Howell et al., 2006, Jirikowic et al., 2008b, Jacobson et al., 2011, Rasmussen and Bisanz, 2011, Crocker et al., 2015) Related to impairments with spatial processing (Crocker et al., 2015), working memory (Rasmussen and Bisanz, 2011), and ability to process relativity of numbers (Jacobson et al., 2011) Mathematical interventions have proved effective (Coles et al., 2009) Impairments found in spelling and reading (Jirikowic et al., 2008b, Glass et al., 2015, Glass et al., 2017) Related to deficits in working memory (Glass et al., 2015)	Children with FASD have greater deficits in arithmetic skills compared to ADHD (Coles et al., 1997) ADHD children are more impaired on measures of reading compared to FASD (Coles et al., 1997)	Deficits in mathematical skills persist even after controlling for global intellectual ability (Jirikowic et al., 2008b, Crocker et al., 2015)
Concurrent psychopathology	Increased risk for ADHD, depression, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, receptive language disorder, and expressive language disorder (Pei et al., 2011, Popova et al., 2016b, Weyrauch et al., 2017, O'Connor and Paley, 2009) Higher rates of psychological disorders compared to typically developing children (Fryer et al., 2007a)	Both clinical groups show increased rates of psychiatric disorders compared to controls Compared to children with FASD, children with ADHD have higher rates of generalized anxiety disorder and oppositional defiant disorder (Ware et al., 2013)	Children with FASD have increased rates of behavior problems compared to IQ-matched children (Vaurio et al., 2011) Similar rates of internalizing behaviors are found between the two groups (Mattson and Riley, 2000)