'Beemer's' permanent hangover

Small amounts of alcohol can hurt

FAS workshops

Teachers and professionals working with children and adults with FAS and FAE can receive information on alcohol effects and intervention strategies atworkshops scheduled for later this month.
Families seeking information and support may attend a support group meeting.
Theresa Kellerman, coordinator of the FAS Community Resource Center in Tucson, will lead the workshops.
A workshop designed for professionals will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Dec. 11.
One for teachers will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Dec. 26.
Registration is $20, to cover the cost of materials.
Workshops will also be held for parents. For dates and locations of all the workshops, call Kellerman at 296-9172.
Visit her Web page at
http://fas.
home.ml.org

Any alcohol can cause hidden troubles

Brenden "Beemer" Williams, 3 is one of 50,000 children born each year with fetal alcohol effects. His adoptive mother worris about his temper and lack of impuse control.

They look so normal, these children with fetal alcohol effects.
But their brains are different.
They can't seem to concentrate. They have a hard time telling right from wrong. They don't learn the way other kids do.
And they get in so much trouble.
"Fetal alcohol effects is worse than fetal alcohol syndrome," says Tucson psychologist Patricia Tanner Halverson, who for eight years has worked with children damaged prenatally by alcohol. "They get in more trouble. In some ways, a diagnosis of FAE is more damning than a diagnosis of FAS."
It is believed that 50,000 children are born with FAE every year in the United States.
"The child looks normal, but isn't," Tanner Halverson said. "They don't see cause and effect. They don't learn from past experiences. They get arrested and get in all kinds of trouble."
In general, FAE babies are born to women who drink less than women who give birth to children with FAS. FAE babies usually do not have the facial features associated with FAS children. But they often have the same problems, and very little help is available for them.
Pam Phipps is research manager of the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit at the University of Washington, which has studied people with alcohol-related birth defects for 25 years.
"If you are a child and you have FAS," Phipps said, "you are probably going to get help. But if you have FAE, you don't get anything. You just slip through the cracks. You're treated like a normal person, but you aren't."
Nearly all people with FAE have mental health problems, and most have trouble with the law.
But locally and nationally, some physicians have stopped diagnosing FAE.
"There clearly is such a thing as FAE, but I don't apply that label to individuals," said Dr. Chris Cunniff, a geneticist and pediatrician at University Medical Center. "We don't use a label like FAE. We might use 'Possible FAE.'"
Cunniff said there are too many variables to diagnose FAE.
"There may be a child who is developmentally delayed and their mom drank, but I'm not sure if they're FAE or not," Cunniff said. "It really becomes difficult to sort out what alcohol's contribution is."

Julie Williams tries to keep son Beemer focused during a play group for kids with special needs.

But he said he has no doubt of the difficulties children and families face from prenatal alcohol exposure. And for most of them, there is little help.
"There is no question FAE exists, but we don't have a handle on it," Cunniff said.
He is also wary of giving a child a label that may cause the child further difficulties.
"There might be a benefit to a diagnosis, but there might be a downside as well," he said. "While it might get people in services, it causes people to give up on those children."
And he doesn't think it's fair that a child with an FAE label would get services while another child with problems would not.
"It seems to me prejudicial that a child with attention deficit disorder from alcohol would get services when one who didn't have alcohol exposure wouldn't," he said.
Cunniff hopes ongoing research will lead to a test for FAE.
"I'm hoping science in years to come will either find a very specific set of delays for children with FAE, or find a biomarker - something we can test, a piece of tissue."
But until that day, children and adults with alcohol-related birth defects will continue to struggle.

Julie Williams helps her adopted son Brenden "Beemer" with coordination and muscle control at a weekly play group.

Adults and children with FAE suffer more mental health problems than do people with FAS. About 97 percent of people with FAE experience mental health difficulties, according to a study by the University of Washington.
"They get depressed after years and years of failing," said Tanner Halverson. "There is a high rate of suicide among these people."
Seventy percent of children with FAE have school difficulties.
Seventy percent of people with FAE get in trouble with the law. More than half get locked up.
In adulthood, more than 80 percent of people with FAE cannot live independently. Seventy percent have a hard time keeping a job.
And the higher their IQ, the more difficulty they have succeeding.
Dr. Anna Binkiewicz, a pediatrician at UMC, agreed that some physicians don't diagnose FAE for fear of labeling a child. But she worries that also denies them services.
"There are some kids in our clinics where I think, 'Should I pull this chart? Am I doing this kid a favor?' If you call it, you label that kid. If you don't call it, you may be denying services to a child who really needs them. I don't know which is more destructive."
So many of the children fail in life, not understanding what is wrong with them.
"They are the invisible ones," said William Chambless, director of development for NOFAS, National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, in Washington, D.C.
"There are some Gerber babies and some very normal-looking kids who were very damaged by alcohol."

Beemer goofs off while watching one of his favorite shows, "Barney."

Gail Harris, who has worked with Arizona children with FAS and FAE since the 1970s as a special education teacher, worries about children with FAE.
"Fetal alcohol effect is a hidden handicap," Harris said. "The kid looks normal, but his behavior or his ability to learn is severely impaired. We feel like they should be able to control themselves more than they can. So we end up blaming the child."
Theresa Kellerman, a Tucson parent advocate, said children with FAE often come across as brighter than they are.
"The expectations are so high because they can come across as really intelligent."
Ruth Solomon teaches at-risk kids at Kellond Elementary School and believes many of them have FAE.
"These are the gray-area kids, and there are no special classes for them," she said. "This sounds horrible, but they are too dumb to be smart, too smart to be dumb. Some of the kids with FAE fall into this range."
Solomon believes the number of FAE kids is growing.
"So many of these kids are being born to women who think, 'What do a couple of drinks do?' But it can do so much damage."
"Kids with FAE appear to be normal otherwise, and that's a big problem. FAE can be a bigger problem than FAS because it is so widespread and because people tend to discount its importance."