AbstractThe term“fetal alcohol spectrum disorders” (FASD) denotes the broad spectrum of morphological chang-es and functional deficits seen in children exposed to alcohol prenatally. While some children on the spectrum show the characteristic pattern of malformations called“fetal alcohol syndrome”(FAS), a significant proportion of alcohol-exposed children do not evidence clinically identifiable morphological alterations. The term“alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder” (ARND) is used to label the latter group. The identification of children with ARND has proven to be chal-lenging because of the lack of clinically discernable physical signs. Therefore, some investigators have used the strategy of assessing maternal drinking during pregnancy and then track ing developmental outcomes in offspring longitudinally. Oth-er methods that investigators have utilized to identify children with prenatal alcohol exposure in population-based studies include multi-source surveillance and active case ascertain-ment. In the current review, we discuss themerits and demerits of these methodologies and then present novel methods of identifying prenatal alcohol exposure (e.g., biomarkers) and subtle effects of morphological alterations and neural effects (e.g., neuroimaging). KeywordsFASD.Fetal alcohol syndrome spectrum
disorders. Alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder. ARND.FAS.Fetal alcohol syndrome.Surveillance. Neuroimaging. Biomarkers.3D facial photography