Unlike other previously discussed behaviors, disruptions in the social behaviors of adult human beings and rats have been readily shown. In adolescent and adult human beings exposed to ethanol in utero, whose average chronological age was 17, the average adaptive functioning as measured by the VABS was equivalent those of a 7-year-old healthy child (16). In this same study, all adolescents and adults were classified in the significant and intermediate categories of the maladaptive behavior section of the VABS including behaviors such as social withdrawal and teasing or bullying of others. In a report on secondary disabilities associated with FASD, Streissguth et al. (252) reported that of adult females exposed to ethanol in utero, 40% had drank alcohol while they were pregnant, and over 50% of the children had been removed from the care of the mother. Difficulties in parenting have also been observed in rats that drank ethanol throughout gestation (253). In this study, females exposed to ethanol mother failed to retrieve pups removed from their nests, a task normally accomplished in a short time by control animals. The
