prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause lifelong physical, social, neurocognitive, and mental health disorders which increase risk for maladaptive behaviours, often leading to criminal activity and victimization (conry & fast, 2000; conry, fast, & loock, 1997; fast & conry, 2009; fast, conry, & loock, 1999; steinhausen, willms, & spohr, 1993; streissguth, Barr, Kogan, & Bookstein, 1996). people with full fetal alcohol syndrome (fas) have a recognizable pattern of birth defects in three areas: growth deficiency, characteristic facial anomalies, and central nervous system (cns) dysfunction. people who meet some, but not all, of the criteria for fas previously were described as having fetal alcohol effects (fae; clarren & smith, 1978). Because of the confusion of the term fae, other diagnostic systems were developed (chudley et al., 2005). fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (fasd) is an umbrella term used to encompass the range of outcomes caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol, including fas, partial fetal alcohol syndrome (partial fas), alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (arnd), and alcohol-related Birth defects (arBd). in the remainder of this article, the term fasd is used to describe the full range of conditions resulting from prenatal exposure to alcohol.