AbstractThe last two decades have witnessed a rapid growth of published data on the cognitive and behavioral functioning of children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The main of aim of this paper is to review cognitive and behavioral data on FASD using a causal modeling framework originally proposed by Morton and Frith [1, 2], according to which data pertinent to a neurodevelopmental disorder can be organized at three levels: neurobiology, cognition, and behavior. In this review, we confine ourselves to reviewing thestudies of cog-nitive abilities and behavior in childrenwith FASD. The studies
of cognitive functions can be further divided into two groups: those of elementary functions (e.g., reflexive orienting re-sponses) and those of complex functions (e.g., language, mem-ory). There is evidence that children with FASD are slower at reflective orienting responses and exhibit deficits in associative learning. The pattern of results emerging from the studies of complex cognitive functions is that the FASD group shows performance decrements with increased task complexity. At the behavioral level, children with prenatal alcohol exposure are rated as showing deficient adaptive skills, particularly in the social domain. These children have also been observed to show deficits in executive functioning with notable behavioral and emotional regulatory problems. A broad range of risk factors including the alcohol’s teratogenicity seem to interactively con-tribute to these cognitive and behavioral problems. KeywordsFetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).Alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND). Fetal alcohol spectrumdisorder (FASD) .Neurocognitive profile. Behavioral phenotype