Living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a lifelong physical and mental condition. Children who have been diagnosed as having FASD display a very large amount of overlapping behavioral characteristics to other mental health diagnoses. Because of this, the diagnosis of FASD is often overlooked and the children are not treated accordingly. This can cause issues for the child, who may then be labelled as difficult in school and in their personal environment. In the scenario presented, we will be looking at the effects the classroom environment may have on a kindergarten student who has been diagnosed with FASD, as well as the Educational Assistant who will be providing assistance …show more content…
These students misinterpret everyday sensory information such as touch, sound, movement and smell. As noted in by Alberta Learning (2004), these students may become distracted in a typical elementary classroom that has bright lights, a number of activities happening simultaneously or loud noise levels. A classroom can be an overwhelming place for a student with FASD as there are so many things to see, noises to hear, smells to experience and movements to watch. These students tend to be easily distracted by this additional stimulus, so working in a busy, noisy and productive classroom is most likely very distracting for this kindergarten student. All of the additional stimuli are competing for his attention potentially causing him to fidget, become disorganized, shut down or up regulate and become hyperactive. This is occurring because his nervous system is having difficulty making sense of what is going on in his environment. The student’s ability to stay on task decreases, causing him to not complete the activity he was working on. This student may have difficulty with his fine motor skill and may have had trouble using scissors efficiently or gluing the pieces of paper that the teacher had instructed them to do. Children with FASD have difficulty sitting properly in a chair for long lengths of time. This student may be having