School is an ordeal for Bethan Morris. "Sometimes I understand things and can do them with the rest of the class, but sometimes I don't," says the 15-year-old. "I can learn something in the morning but have forgotten it by the afternoon. That happens with all subjects." Bethan also gets distracted very easily in the middle of classes, and has to ask the teacher or pupil beside her to go back over things.
Bethan has trouble learning because she has moderate foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), in which a mother-to-be's drinking during pregnancy impairs her baby's brain function. About one in 100 children in the UK has some form of the condition which, like autism, is measured on a spectrum of harm from mild to serious. She attends a mainstream secondary school in Salisbury, Wiltshire where she is studying for a BTec in travel and tourism and another in PE, four GCSEs and a diploma in ICT. Many children with FAS are not diagnosed for years, and Bethan was not told until she was 11.
Bethan attends her school's homework club and extra support lessons in the afternoon, and is helped by her stepmother, Briony. Despite that, she admits: "My learning has fallen behind because of the FAS. It has affected me quite a lot, especially because I have trouble remembering things I've learned. So I do have many frustrations at school."
Such pupils clearly represent a major challenge for schools and teachers. However, it is a challenge they are not geared up to respond to properly, according to new research by Professor Barry Carpenter, an expert in the education of children with complex needs. "Many UK school settings will not be aware that they have children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) in their pupil population," says Carpenter. "Classroom accommodation, adaptation and amelioration are required to engage children with FASD as an effective learner. As yet, UK teachers are ill-equipped to undertake this process." . . . . .
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