Alcohol-exposed children display deficits in both learning and recall of verbal information (Mattson, Riley, Delis, Stern, & Jones, 1996; Mattson & Roebuck, 2002). They learn fewer words on the learning trials of the California Verbal Learning Test-Children’s Version (CVLT-C) and have greater difficulty recalling them on both free and recognition recall trials (Crocker, Vaurio, Riley, & Mattson, 2011; Mattson, Riley, Delis, et al., 1996). These deficits are present in both children with and without the physical features of FAS (Mattson, et al., 1998; Mattson & Roebuck, 2002). Interestingly, when the number of words initially learned was controlled, alcohol-exposed children displayed retention rates that were similar to typically developing controls (Mattson, et al., 1998; Mattson & Roebuck, 2002). These findings have been replicated in independent samples of children (Kaemingk, Mulvaney, & Tanner Halverson, 2003; Willoughby, et al., 2008) and adults (Coles, Lynch, Kable, Johnson, & Goldstein, 2010), and in a study of light to moderate levels of alcohol exposure (Willford, et al., 2004). Of note, implicit learning strategies on tasks like the CVLT-C may positively influence the ability of alcohol-exposed children
