Derek Neary
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Apr 02/99) - Sandy Birg rarely if ever alters her breakfast, lunch and dinner menus at home because that's how her five children with fetal alcohol effects distinguish the day of the week.

If they wake up to cereal, they know it's Monday. Bagels mean it's Tuesday. Bacon and eggs are served on Wednesday.

The routine might seem monotonous to some, but for Birg's children it's an effective strategy to help them come to terms with something that they would never otherwise comprehend due to their affliction.

Birg and Donna Whenny, both representing the FAS Support Network in Surrey, B.C., shared such behavioural strategies last Wednesday during a workshop at the Community Wellness conference in Fort Simpson.

They opened by explaining that FAS is an affliction known in every culture and, with 4,300 children born with the disease every year in Canada alone, it's more common than spina bifida, HIV, muscular dystrophy and Down's Syndrome. Because a fetus' brain is always developing, it's dangerous to drink at any stage of pregnancy, according to Whenny. She added that FAS can be prevented by abstaining from alcohol while pregnant.

The consequences of FAS vary among individuals, but can be deceiving, she noted. Children born with FAS are often outwardly normal from a physical and verbal standpoint, but their comprehension and social skills lag.

Problem areas for these children include: concepts such as rules, responsibilities and telling time; abstract ideas such as sugar being sweet; and cause and effect reasoning.

Being able to generalize is another challenge for FAS children. By telling them that a handgun is dangerous, they won't necessarily understand that a rifle is also dangerous, said Whenny, who has two children with FAS.

"For kids with FAS, every situation is a brand new situation," she said.

Short-term memory deficits are another reality for most children with FAS. For example, multiplication tables are extremely difficult to memorize. Whenny said this problem can lead to the appearance that the child is simply careless or indifferent.

"It often looks like purposeful behaviour because they don't feel like it or they're not motivated," she explained.

When it comes to intervention techniques, Birg's first recommendation to parents and teachers was to use exact language with FAS children.

"When you have FAS you need to hear the point immediately," she said. "Don't give them too many words to process."

She also suggested that it's best to tell them what they're supposed to do rather than what not to do. "Hang your coat in the closet" rather than "Pick your coat up off the floor," she said.

Associated gestures and even basic sign language can also prove invaluable because children with FAS are usually visual learners, according to Birg.

As well, because they tend to be concrete thinkers, they usually take everything literally. Therefore, she advised that idiomatic expressions such as "Give me a break," or "Knock it off," be avoided.

Structure and routine in their lives is very important, she said. They must be given direction.

"For kids with FAS, free time means trouble," she said. "Yes, we want our kids to be the same. And yes, we want our kids to experience the things that all the other kids experience -- but if it's painful for them, we should not do it."

Finally, Birg said it's often necessary to experiment with these techniques because some children function at higher levels, others at lower levels. Two of her FAS children have IQs of 32, she said, yet they are remarkably productive.

"My children have unbelievable life skills. They can feed themselves, dress themselves, they can make their beds," she said.