Symptoms
Alcohol and Birth Defects
Mental retardation is the most common and serious birth defect associated with FAS. The average IQ for persons with FAS is 67, and one-half of all those afflicted with the syndrome have an IQ of less than 70. Thus, most of these persons are in the mildly retarded range (50 to 70).
Perhaps the most notable defects in FAS involve the face and eyes. In general, these defects are obvious and include facial bone hypoplasia (under-development), a long, underdeveloped philtrum (the groove in the middle of the upper lip), a thin upper lip, a short nose, and ptosis (drooping of the eyelids).
Although the typical facial features may not be as apparent during the newborn period, they become more prominent as the infant develops. As these children grow into young adulthood, however, the facial abnormalities become more subtle and thereby contribute to the difficulty of recognizing FAS in older persons.
With these physical abnormalities come sensory deficits that frequently involve vision, hearing and speech. Hyperacusis (abnormal acuteness of hearing) is common in infants, and approximately one third of these infants have a conductive hearing loss and another one-third have a sensorineural hearing loss.
More than 90 percent of infants with FAS have delays in receptive and expressive language development.
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