Learning following prenatal alcohol exposure: performance on verbal and visual multitrial tasks

Verbal Learning deficits have been reported following prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). This study examined verbal and visual multitrial learning in children with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or fetal alcohol effects (FAE) and controls matched on age and gender from the same community. In this study, the FAS/FAE group’s immediate memory on the Verbal Learning and Visual Learning tasks from the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML) was significantly weaker than that of the control group. Although the FAS/FAE group also recalled significantly less information after a delay, they did retain an equivalent proportion of the visual and verbal information as compared to the control group. Thus, the overall pattern of performance on both verbal and visual measures was consistent with that observed in previous studies of Verbal Learning: despite weaker learning, the FAS/FAE group’s relative retention of information was no different than that of controls.