Answering a Call to Action: Progress in FASD Intervention

In 2008 a national task force on FASD in the United States released a report entitled "A Call to Action," about the vital need for action to advance essential services and research on FASD.

This report included recommendations for a focus on FASD intervention services and research. Just 3 years later, this call to action is being answered in many exciting ways.

What progress is being made in FASD intervention? Here is only some of what is happening in the USA right now!

• An electronic book on the state-of-the-art of the field of FASD is just now coming out, entitled: Prenatal Alcohol Use and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Diagnosis, Assessment and New Directions in Research and Multimodal Treatment. Bentham Science Publishers, Bentham eBooks.
• Community-based dissemination of interventions tested in CDC-funded research is underway:
  • Children’s friendship skills groups
  • Computer software that aims to improve executive function skills in young children
  • Parent and child education groups
  • Positive parenting intervention: The Families Moving Forward Program
• Innovative new interventions are being tested in research funded by NIAAA and CDC
  • Multimodal intervention for toddlers with FASD and their families
  • Intervention to improve balance and motor skills in school-aged children with FASD
  • Substance use treatment for adolescents and young adults with FASD
  • Multimodal treatment, including mentoring, to help adolescents and young adults with FASD and their families
• Conferences in the US, and other countries such as Canada, are being held to exchange information about FASD intervention strategies
• CDC-funded FASD Regional Training Centers are doing education on FASD, including intervention, all over the USA

For more information about what is happening in FASD intervention, visit the FASD Center for Excellence website, at http://www.fasdcenter.samhsa.gov/