A case study of a child named Eve is undertaken in this report suffering from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The disorders were diagnosed at the age of 11 and the child has been suffering through it till yet at the age of 18. The problems of the child have gotten worse with age due to lack of awareness towards the issue by her parents as she also has two younger siblings that need to be taken care of. The child affected by the disorders has been provided therapy for her ADHD but have not received any proper attention or care for her FASD. This report sheds light on the issues faces by the child due to the disorders, its effects, accommodations that could be followed along with the difficulties that might occur in applying the mentioned accommodations (FASD Prevention, 2018).
This scenario is about Eve, a child adopted from a Russian orphanage who had been diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder at the age of 11. As soon as the child was adopted at the age of 4, she started showing signs of negative attachment towards the family she was adopted into. The negative attachment factors were taken care of by the adopting family by continuous support and counseling along with therapy sessions. In school, the child performed average and has been attending the mainstream classes although on an Individualized Education Plan. Eve showed some signs of FASD but not all the traits which made her family consider her not being stellar in studies to be a motivational issue rather than a psychological or physical one (Government of Alberta, 2008). The main reason behind selecting this scenario is to bring the issue of FASD into the light and understand the effect the disorder has on children throughout their lives making them the victims. In addition, there is no permanent solution or cure of this disorder, which can easily be avoided by undertaking some prevention at the time of pregnancy by the mothers birthing children.
The adopting family of Eve has been supportive of her growth and development throughout her life of 18 years. They have always tried to help her in whatever situation she faced while having to care for two other younger children. Although Eve’s adoptive parents have been trying their best to provide her with the best care, they are still quite unaware of the reason behind Eve’s disorder and consider it mostly as a motivational issue rather than a disorder. The major visible effect of FASD is the lack of hygiene and relativity to the younger generation. These were the major signs that categorized Eve’s illness to be FASD. ADHD has also played a major role in deforming Eve’s psychological growth, leading to her shortened attention span, inability to relate to the kids her age and finding solace in the company of unknown individuals empathizing with her with hidden alter intentions (Lange, Probst, & Popova, 2017). Trusting strangers easily too has been a part of Eve’s psychological development in the presence of ADHD. This has made her more susceptible to fall prey to strangers trying to harm her and also her being more secretive towards her wrongdoings. It is mentioned that in order to prevent Eve from talking to strangers, her phone was taken from her and also her computer use was limited. This happened in the developmental phase of Eve’s life when children go through puberty and understand the social norms in the aspect of rights and wrongs. Although Eva understood that talking to strangers was wrong, she was never confronted regarding the understanding of the reason behind it and as she found solace in the false empathies of these men, she tries to escape back to them secretively as she is aware of her family not allowing it on the first hand. Eve’s family hence suffers the problem of lack of communication amongst the family.
Due to one of the children suffering from FASD and ADHD in the family along with two other younger children, the family is suffering in terms of managing their daily chores and preventing their oldest child from following unethical practices in her life. As Eve, the oldest child is a teenager and also suffering through FASD and ADHD, it becomes difficult for her to share her emotions and mindset with any of the family members as she feels she would be either judged or be further prevented to do other things in life rather than being understood or heard. Her family too might feel that the issues going on with Eve might be due to hormonal changes that she is going through being a teenager that she represents by being rebellious and not doing what her family and parents ask of her (Pacey, 2009). Her parents might even consider Eve to be a negative influence on her two younger siblings. Eve, on the other hand, is quite resourceful and innovative when it comes to doing something that she wants to do. Her mother, on the other hand, her hands full of taking care of the household, Eve and her special needs and also the younger siblings while her husband is not at home which might be a stressful situation for Eve’s adopted mother. Already her mother is trying her best to keep up with the work while Eve keeps on doing the task she is prevented to do leading the trail further by getting suspended in school and underage drinking, making the situations worse for her mother. Eve is secretive of her plans with her mother and due to her problem of trusting strangers easily, she goes out with unknown men that might have a high potential of hurting Eve. She has also partaken in stealing her mother’s guardianship account card in order to purchase a phone, an act that if not stopped, could lead to more serious troubles in the future. The impact of a child suffering from FASD is highly negative on the adopting family, in this case, making them suffer even more as the child grows older (Warren, Hewitt, & Thomas, 2011).
At the moment, Eve is an 18-year-old teenager living with her mother and two younger siblings. She is a child who lands into trouble constantly for doing everything against the school’s rules and regulations or her parents’. The family of the child tries its best to help Eve in her situation but is incapable of doing much being unaware of her condition and its requirements. Her mother treats her as she would any other teenage daughter and punishes her for her mistakes. This creates a boundary between the two also leading to a lack of communication between the two and subsequently loss of trust. Eve’s sisters are mostly unaware of their sister’s condition and are closer to their mother than they are with their older sister which is evident by the act of telling on her when she is about to get into trouble. Although this act also shows the caring side of Eve’s siblings as they worry about her and hope nothing wrong comes her way (Gerberding & Cordero, 2014). Eve finds solace in mingling with men that are unknown to her family rather than spending time with her family. The reason behind this could be her inability to discuss her feeling and issues in life with her mother and perceiving her mother to be someone who would rather be interested in judging and condemning Eve’s acts rather than understanding her reasons or feelings behind doing them.
Eve’s mother is the perfect example of an uninformed perspective on the FASD condition that Eve is going through. Although her mother is aware of Eve’s disorders, she does not know its effects and issues that it creates for a person. In addition, she is unaware and unknown to the ways in which the issues raised by the affected person could be resolved in the best possible manner leaving both Eve and her mother frustrated in this situation and at a loss of communication making the problem even worse for the future. Anyone being unaware of the disorder or its effects would act in the same way as Eve’s mother does (Kellerman, 2013). To her, Eve is a teenager that is indulged in wrong practices and in order to prevent her from doing so and getting into trouble in the future, her mother takes away her phone, her laptop, limits her computer time and even stops her from meeting people without understanding the reason behind it. She acts as any other parent might act in that situation. Eve’s mother instead of understanding the motive and driving force behind the deeds that Eve does rather prevents the child from doing it without an argument. It could be better understood with an example of a patient and a doctor. If a patient with cervical spondylosis visits a doctor, complaining of neck pain and the doctor prescribes the patient with painkillers rather than understanding the cause behind the pain and treating it accordingly, the problem is bound to get worse affecting the patient more in the future and could prove to be untreatable in later phase. Same is Eve’s mother’s case, rather than getting to the root cause of the issue, she tries to sort it out by evening out the symptoms causing Eve’s condition to worsen as the time passes (McLean & McDougall, 2014).
According to the setting, Eve is expected to behave in a manner as any other teenager is expected to behave. She is expected to be an average teenager and not get into trouble, which could cause problems for her parents and her siblings. She is also expected to behave as an ideal older child in the family to provide a benchmark for her younger siblings to look up to. However, due to her disorders, she is not able to perform any of those tasks leading to frustration and wrong-doings on both ends. Although it can clearly be understood, that Eve tries to do well by her family by cooking and being an overall happy child. This shows her strong will to change for the better of her family. What she lacks is an effort from her parents’ end. It is difficult for Eve to be a socially cognitive child suffering from both FASD and ADHD. She understands the rules and regulations of social behavior and can recite it when asked for but has difficulty in applying it to her life and also in following the same. FASD might cause her to be an alcoholic in the future and highly unstable as well which might lead to impulse control issues in the future (Popova, 2019). FASD and ADHD also affect her judgment skills and adaptive skills letting her take poor decisions and trusting strangers. For Eve, the decision towards trusting someone that she does not know becomes equal in a yes and no dimension. She also lacks judgment and basic cleanliness and hygiene as her mind constantly fluctuate in thought that she is unable to deliver making her forget the day-to-day activities that are required to be followed. When she is poked on the same every day, she is bound to get upset and frustrated despite her lack of effort leading to her giving up on trying after a while. In order to accommodate all these factors, Eve’s parents need to understand her special needs. They need to be sensitive towards her demands and patient towards her understanding and accepting of routines. She is required to be trained each day to follow the same basic steps in order to maintain hygiene so that she can get into the routine and the process becomes like clockwork that takes place subconsciously without having Eve to think about it each day. Expectation setting is required to be altered at the pace at which Eve is comfortable rather than at which other kids her age develop. The communication gap between the parents and the child needs to be bridged so that Eve is comfortable telling her issues and her parents could help her get rid of them one by one. Eve could be motivated into doing a task that she likes or is good at that would streamline her thinking process while at the same time calm her down, for example, cooking which she’s good at. Although the aforementioned tasks are easier said than done, with patience a lot of children with the same issues have been able to live normal lives. The process takes time and in some cases, the children too become restless and lose hope. In these cases, they are required to be properly motivated to keep their morale boosted and to help them develop a certain confidence in themselves. Medical help could also be provided in severe cases to care for these children in the early stages of the problem (Williams & Smith, 2015).
In the given scenario, the provided recommendations are enough to prove beneficial for the child as the child still is not that extremely affected by the disorder and can be helped without the medical care. Although this whole process depends on the child’s parents on how they are able to apply the accommodations. If they find themselves incapable of helping the child in the case, external medical help like therapy sessions could always be considered with the recommendation of a doctor. Children like this are always in need of special care and attention, which is best when it comes from the close family rather than an outsider. Most children provided proper care to recover almost entirely from this disorder and live a normal life like everyone else (McLean & McDougall, 2014). The whole process is a time taking one and can lead to frustration for both the child and the family. FASD is an issue, which if intervened upon early in the child’s life, can recover the child completely over a period of time. Although if too much time passes, the condition of the child, both physically and psychologically deteriorates over time. Hence, FASD and ADHD once detected in a child need to be worked upon as soon as possible with the help of the child’s family as well as external medical help if required.
This report helps in understanding the effects on the behavior of a child due to a combination of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder with the help of a case. From this, it could easily be understood the problems that a child suffering from both the disorders face and the problems faced by the parents as well. There are various reasons behind the not recovering of a child from these disorders, which include lack of attention, lack of understanding and empathy and also lack of knowledge on the subject. A severe disorder such as FASD is incurable, although if identified at early stages at the time of the birth of the child, it could be completely cured by understanding the child’s need, consulting a doctor regarding the same and following simple procedures provided.
Conclusion
This report concentrates on the problems in day-to-day life of a child suffering from disorders like FASD and ADHD. It also concentrates on other aspects of the child’s life including their family and siblings who are also affected by the behaviour of the affected child. The primary concern is to identify and diagnose the disorder on time so that its cure could be applied and the child could be taken care of. If not worked upon on time, the disorder can only get worse and affect the child throughout their life and would hamper the daily functions of the affected child. Various recommendations are provided as well to help the child be understood with respect to their requirements so that the cure could be tailored according to it. In most cases of FASD, a medical opinion is always beneficial in getting rid of the disorder entirely at an early age of a child’s life.
References
FASD Prevention. (2018). PREVENTION of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD): A multi-level model. Retrieved from https://fasd.alberta.ca/documents/CanFASD_4_levels_of_prevention_brief.pdf
Gerberding, J., & Cordero, J. (2014). Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Guidelines for Referral and Diagnosis. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/documents/FAS_guidelines_accessible.pdf
Government of Alberta. (2008). FASD 10-year strategic plan . Retrieved from https://fasd.alberta.ca/documents/FASD-10-year-plan.pdf
Kellerman, T. (2013). Characteristics and Symptoms of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome . Retrieved from https://come-over.to/FAS/brochures/characteristics.pdf
Lange, S., Probst, C., & Popova, S. (2017). Estimation of national, regional, and global prevalence of alcohol use during pregnancy and fetal alcohol syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. pp. 290–99. Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(17)30021-9.pdf
McLean, S., & McDougall, S. (2014). Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: Current issues in awareness, prevention and intervention. Retrieved from https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/sites/default/files/publication-documents/cfca-paper29-fasd.pdf
Pacey, M. (2009). Fetal alcohol Syndrome & Fetal alcohol Spectrum diSor der among abor iginal canadians: Knowledge Gaps. Retrieved from https://www.ccnsa-nccah.ca/docs/health/RPT-FASDKnowledgeGaps-Pacey-EN.pdf
Popova, S. (2019). Epidemiology of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Retrieved from https://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_docman&view=download&alias=48267-epidemiology-of-fetal-alcohol-spectrum-disorder-svetlana-popova&category_slug=webinar-fetal-alcohol-spectrum-disorders-fasd-epidemiology-and-diagnosis-10-april-2019&Itemid=270&l
Warren, K., Hewitt, B., & Thomas, J. (2011). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Research Challenges and Opportunities. 34(1), pp. 1-11. Retrieved from https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh341/4-14.pdf
Williams, J., & Smith, V. (2015). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. pp. 1-14. Retrieved from https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2015/10/13/peds.2015-3113.full.pdf
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