Deficits in attention are a hallmark of the effects of heavy prenatal
alcohol exposure but although such deficits have been described in the
literature, no attempt to use measures of attention to classify
children with such exposure has been described. Thus, the current study
attempted to classify children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure
(ALC) and non-exposed controls (CON), using four measures of
attentional functioning: the Freedom from Distractibility index from
the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Third Edition
(WISC–III), the Attention Problems scale from the Child Behavior
Checklist (CBCL), and omission and commission error scores from the
Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA). Data from two groups of children
were analyzed: children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure and
non-exposed controls. Children in the alcohol-exposed group included
both children with or without fetal alcohol syndrome. Groups were
matched on age, sex, ethnicity, and social class. Data were analyzed
using backward logistic regression. The final model included the
Freedom from Distractibility index from the WISC–III and the
Attention Problems scale from the CBCL. The TOVA variables were not
retained in the final model. Classification accuracy was 91.7% overall.
Specifically, 93.3% of the alcohol-exposed children and 90% of the
control children were accurately classified. These data indicate that
children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure can be distinguished from
non-exposed controls with a high degree of accuracy using 2 commonly
used measures of attention. (JINS, 2004, 10,
271–277.)