Developmental Neurorehabilitation, August 2009; 12(4): 239–247 SUBJECT REVIEW A review of the verbal and visual memory impairments in children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorders SHAZEEN MANJI, JACQUELINE PEI, CARLY LOOMES, & CARMEN RASMUSSEN University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Received 16 April 2009; accepted 19 April 2009) Abstract Background: Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) have significant impairments in memory, negatively affecting academics and daily functioning. Primary objective: To review published research on: (1) verbal and visual-spatial memory in children with FASD or prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE); (2) animal research on the impact of PAE on memory; and (3) brain areas involved in memory that are affected by PAE. Main outcomes: Verbal memory is one of the main areas of memory affected by gestational alcohol exposure, specifically in encoding and retrieving information. Spatial memory has emerged as a dominant deficit in individuals with FASD, consistent in children, adolescents and adults. There are regions of the brain more typically affected by PAE, which have ties to memory functioning. Animal research has confirmed the presence of impacts to key brain regions involved in memory functioning for those affected by PAE. Conclusion: Memory deficits are a prevalent finding in individuals with PAE. Research in this area is complicated by small sample sizes, difficulty linking animal research to human application and lack of effective connection between existing memory theory and functional memory testing in FASD. New research has shown that there are implications for memory and learning amelioration in children with FASD. Keywords: Foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, verbal memory, visual spatial memory Introduction Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) encom- pass many challenges in the areas of cognitive, physical, behavioural, emotional and/or social func- tioning [1]. Neuropsychological impairments that children with FASD face include deficits in atten- tion, executive functioning, visual spatial abilities, intelligence, information processing speed, academic achievement, language and of particular interest memory. Since the cognitive deficits of FASD are not fully understood, research addressing this area is important to drive future diagnosis, education and intervention approaches. This review will discuss verbal and visual spatial memory deficits in children with FASD, summarize the spatial memory deficits in animal models of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and review research on the brain areas that are involved in memory and specifically affected by PAE. Finally, a discussion of implications, interven- tions and future directions is presented. Verbal memory A number of studies have revealed that children with FASD have specific deficits in verbal memory. For instance, Mattson et al. [2] found that children (aged 5–16) with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) displayed difficulty on immediate recall of words, delayed recall and cued recall on the CVLT. In addition, they identified an increased tendency for perseveration, extra-list intrusion errors and false-positive errors [2]. However, children with FAS were able to retain the same amount of previously learned words over the delay period, suggesting that although they exhibit poor learning they have normal forgetting rates for acquired information [2]. Mattson et al. [3] further studied verbal memory and learning on the CVLT among 15 children with FAS, 10 children with PAE (prenatal alcohol exposure) and 25 control children (aged 5–16 years). The authors determined that the FAS and PAE groups demonstrated similar patterns Correspondence: Dr Jacqueline Pei, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. E-mail: jacqueline.pei@ualberta.ca ISSN 1751–8423 print/ISSN 1751–8431 online/09/040239–9 ß 2009 Informa Healthcare Ltd. DOI: 10.1080/17518420902980118