In the domain of attention, three studies have documented differences in the nature of the attention impairments seen in these two clinical groups. Coles and colleagues (Coles, Platzman, Raskind-Hood, et al., 1997) demonstrated unique attention profiles between these two clinical groups by assessing attention using the four factor model proposed by Mirsky (Mirsky, Anthony, Duncan, Ahearn, & Kellam, 1991): Focus, Sustain, Encode, and Shift. While children with ADHD had more difficulty in the Focus and Sustain components, children with FASD were more impaired in the Encode and Shift domains. These results indicate that ADHD is characterized by difficulties focusing and sustaining attention, whereas FASD is associated with deficits in shifting attention, encoding of information, and flexibility in problem solving. More recent studies using a Go/No-Go response inhibition task indicate that children with ADHD, regardless of prenatal alcohol exposure, exhibited poorer inhibitory control but only children with ADHD without prenatal alcohol exposure showed impaired neural processing, suggesting that the attention deficits in ADHD associated with prenatal alcohol exposure are qualitatively different than those in ADHD alone (Burden, et al., 2010). Furthermore,
