Furthermore, children with FASD have poor spatial recall on the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure task relative to controls (Willoughby, et al., 2008). Because learning was not assessed in this study, it is difficult to conclude whether impairments are due to learning or memory deficits. A separate study found that light-to-moderate levels of prenatal alcohol exposure predicted poorer performance on a different design memory task (Richardson, et al., 2002). Additional studies have demonstrated that when performance on visual perception and verbal memory tasks are taken into account with statistical analysis, group differences in spatial memory are no longer apparent, suggesting that impairments in spatial memory may be explained by deficits in lower order processes (Kaemingk & Halverson, 2000).
