Given the heterogeneity of outcomes, overlap in presentation with other clinical groups, and the lack of a definitive physical or biological marker with which to identify all children who have been prenatally exposed to alcohol, identification of affected children is often difficult, especially without confirmed maternal history of alcohol exposure. Focusing on domains that are particularly affected and continuing to develop the neuropsychological profile will assist in determining the expected pattern of deficits in children with prenatal alcohol exposure. A focus of more recent neuropsychological investigations is to compare individuals with prenatal alcohol exposure to those who manifest clinically similar behaviors in order to clarify the specificity of deficits to prenatal alcohol exposure and determine a pattern of performance that might distinguish the groups. Thus far, this literature has focused on comparisons between children with FASD and non-exposed children with ADHD as well as between children with FASD and non-exposed children with low IQ scores.
