Source monitoring in children with and without fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

OBJECTIVES

Deficits in memory are well-documented in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD); however, one aspect of memory not yet studied in children with FASD is source monitoring. This study examined overall source monitoring ability and performance profiles of children with FASD compared to controls.

METHOD: Participants included 19 children with FASD and 38 typically developing children (aged 6-12 years). Children were presented with auditory word lists and were required to recall the source of words for reality, external, and internal source monitoring tasks.

RESULTS

Children with FASD showed poorer performance than controls across all three conditions in both recognition memory and memory for source. However, both groups exhibited a comparable pattern of performance across conditions. Specifically, performance was lowest on the internal task and highest on the reality task.

CONCLUSIONS

Information about source monitoring deficits further delineates the intricacies of memory deficits in FASD, and has implications for both assessment and intervention.