Brain Plasticity and FASD

Brain plasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change and re-organize itself in response to both internal and external cues. This process occurs throughout life, and allows the brain to adapt, learn new skills, form memories, and recover from injury. Tremendous advances have been made in our understanding of early brain development, and the importance of environmental cues and the people children interact with early in life. These factors provide important clues to understanding both the neurobiology of “learning” deficits in children with FASD and how these challenges can be overcome with specific supportive strategies. This session will briefly review the interrelated processes underlying brain plasticity, some of the critical factors that positively, or negatively, influence brain plasticity, and evidence for the impact of postnatal interventions to promote brain plasticity in children with FASD.

"But how do we know this is because of FASD?" What educators need to know to support the learning and holistic well being of students with FASD.

Educators encounter increasing complexity within their classrooms. As schools adopt neurodiversity-affirming and trauma-informed practices as universal strategies, questions persist regarding the necessity of specialized or individualized supports for students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). While education possesses the potential to transform, uplift, and empower, it has also, for many students with FASD, resulted in stigmatization, oppression, and harm due to insufficient adaptation to their unique needs. This workshop, drawing on clinical and caregiver perspectives, will examine the distinct presentations, profiles, and experiences of students with FASD, introduce an FASD-informed lens for understanding these students, and identify strategies to support their learning and holistic well-being.

Journeys to Adulthood: Do You Have the Supports Needed for Travel?

The move into adult life is one of the riskiest times for a person with FASD. It is also the least mapped out for the families walking beside them. Canada's 2025 National Review of FASD evidence is clear. The goal should be interdependence, not independence. And steady relationships with people who understand FASD matter more than anything else.

This 80-minute session walks that journey with caregivers and workers, using content that applies right across Canada. We start by changing the goal from independence to interdependence. Then we look at strengths, struggles and a life-skills checklist you can use at any age. We also cover how to build a circle of support and how to write a crisis plan before you need one.

Next, we take on the questions that keep caregivers awake. What do guardianship, trusteeship, supported decision-making and power of attorney really mean? What is each one called in your province or territory? Why does “conservatorship” mean nothing in Canadian law? We look at the smallest steps first, then at real costs and timelines.

The last part follows the money and the future: the Disability Tax Credit, the RDSP, the Canada Disability Benefit, provincial income supports, Henson trusts, school, work and housing. We name the IQ cut-offs that shut people with FASD out of provincial services, and show a Canadian model that does not.

Everything is written in plain language. You leave with the words used where you live, and a plan you can start this month.

Visual Communication Supports for FASD & Other Drug Effects

Children who have Prenatal Neurotoxin Exposures with reading, writing, sensory, subtle speech & language and social skills challenges can benefit from visual communication and art-based strategies that ease defensive and overwhelmed reactions. When words are offline, children can show what they cannot say. Examples of hands-on supports help educators and parents map workarounds for stress threshold and strengths in each child, improving teamwork around functional fatigue yet creative capacity, the good days & bad days of living with “invisible” neurodevelopmental differences.

Life Skills for Work - Transition to Employment Programs

Life Skills for Work programs equip learners with the essential skills needed for employment readiness and workplace success. Funded through a government grant, this initiative supports programs that build employability, confidence, communication, and career readiness. Kristin will highlight established and newly developed programs across Britich Columbia, resources to get started and share how to stay connect.

It’s More Than Social Skills: Understanding Relational Cognitive Demands for Students with FASD

Students with FASD are often described as having difficulty with “social skills,” but successfully navigating relationships requires far more than knowing what is socially expected. Every interaction places demands on the brain: noticing and interpreting social cues, considering another person’s perspective, shifting when things do not go as expected, managing impulses and emotions, communicating needs effectively, and applying past learning in the moment.

When these relational cognitive skills are lagging or inconsistently accessible, students can appear rude, argumentative, controlling, self-centered, or unwilling to cooperate. Through a brain-based lens, however, these behaviors can be understood differently: as signs that the cognitive demands of the interaction have exceeded the student’s capacity in that moment.

In this session, participants will learn to identify the often-hidden cognitive skills required to successfully navigate relationships at school and explore how FASD can impact a student’s ability to access and apply these skills consistently. Using common school-based examples, participants will practice looking beneath relational challenges to identify the cognitive demands involved and consider practical ways to adjust expectations, provide scaffolding, and support students more effectively.

Living with FASD: A Teenager’s Perspective on Mental Health, Challenges, and Advocacy

Transitioning into adulthood can be challenging for anyone, but as someone who lives with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), the journey often challenges even my unique strengths, barriers, and support needs. This presentation explores the realities of moving into adult life with FASD, including how it has impacted my mental health, independence, education, employment, and social relationships. Drawing on my experience in the session I will share how living with FASD has impacted my mental health, emotional regulation, relationships with friends and family. I will also discuss my transition from secondary education to university, including executive functioning demands, academic pressures, self-advocacy, parental advocacy and accessing appropriate supports.

Psycho-education - how to avoid pitfalls of the difference between self-perception and perception by evaluators

Evaluations to determine skill and cognitive abilities of people with FASD are frequently used as a basis to make decisions about the "right" workplace, interventions, assistance. When done 1-on-1, or in any case without members of their support network, these evaluations can easily over-rate the examinees abilities. This is driven by the wish to perform (of the person with FASD).

There is a real systemic problem: People with FASD want to fulfill expectations. But the damage their brain suffered during pregnancy is profound and lasting, amongst others impacting their ability to self-reflect. Asked about their ability to successfully perform routine, everyday activities, they would describe their life as being one without problems. That is not intentional deception. Rather, their brain fills missing information unintentionally with data that seems logical and fitting.

When these seemingly self-confident and reassuring answers are taken for granted by evaluators, the resulting conclusions can lead to overly demanding requirements at home or at work. That in turn would lead to sensory overload, termination of work arrangements and/or interventions, and emotional stress.

What can we do? Involve caregivers or other members of the support network of the person whose abilities are being evaluated. They will be able to provide a longer-term perspective on the person with FASD. They will be able to pin-point, what kinds of assistance are needed and useful, be it on everyday chores, finances, daily routines.

Psycho-education of both persons with FASD and those involved in their support network will be invaluable to understand a diagnosis and the resulting challenges. Instead of downplaying their "weaknesses", they will feel empowered to ask for assistance and will therefore be better able to master their lives.

In this session, we will review study results and how to translate these findings into your care setting.

The Animation Curriculum: Acceptability, Feasibility and Engagement of a Specifically Designed FASD Educational Intervention in Two Mainstream Classroom Settings

This presentation provides an overview of a feasibility study assessing the acceptability, logistical implications of and student engagement with The Animation Curriculum, a novel educational intervention which uses arts practices to deliver curricular content to students aged 7 to 10 years. The Animation Curriculum is a seven module, cross curricular programme acting as a mode of delivery through which a whole class of students completes a series of tasks and actions producing a series of outputs. This approach is multi-sensory, tactile and multimodal with a strengths based approach for those with FASD. Through this feasibility study, educators at schools in North East England and British Columbia, Canada (supported by POPFASD) identify topics of learning to be delivered to the class before completing training in The Animation Curriculum delivery and working closely with researchers to produce detailed delivery documentation to support the specific needs of their class population in line with the chosen topic of learning.

A mixed method approach collected both quantitative and qualitative data showing promising results, with students with FASD scoring 0.42 points (of 28 total) lower on the Engagement Scale (Carpenter et al, 2015. ) than the class as a whole across each module. Interviews with teachers were carried out and thematic analysis completed using NViVo with teachers stating, "this is up there with the most engaging thing these kids have had", "they learned so much more than I was expecting", "I was quite worried about doing it right but once we started the students just got on with it" and "they worked the entire session, which is so unlike them".

The presentation concludes that this approach could be highly valuable for this population, and ends with an open discussion around our plans for Phase 2 as we aim to expand across more school districts and more countries to scale testing.

Applied Self-Reg for Education Assistants and other Support Roles

Supporting students with FASD can be complex, particularly when behaviours are misunderstood as intentional, oppositional, or simply a lack of self-control. A Self-Reg lens offers a different way of understanding behaviour—one that begins with curiosity about stress and recognizes the important role relationships and regulation play in learning, participation, and connection.

This practical, interactive session will explore how the five domains of stress can help education assistants and other support staff better understand what may be driving a student’s behaviour and identify ways to reduce stress rather than simply respond to its outward signs.

We will consider how FASD can affect regulation, including differences in sensory processing, attention, executive functioning, communication, and the ability to recognize or respond to stress. Participants will explore how these differences can influence a student’s capacity to engage, transition, communicate, and participate successfully in everyday school experiences.

Just as importantly, we will turn the Self-Reg lens toward ourselves. Supporting students who experience significant stress can be demanding, and our own state of regulation influences the students we support. We will explore practical ways staff can recognize their own stress, support their own regulation, and use co-regulation to create safer, more predictable, and more responsive environments.

Participants will leave with practical strategies for reframing behaviour, reducing stress, strengthening connection, and supporting students with FASD—and themselves—with greater curiosity, compassion, and intention.

Navigating Inclusion Advocacy Through Rights-Based Legislation

School exclusions come in many forms. In BC, families can advocate for meaningful inclusion by familiarizing themselves with the BC School Act, the Human Rights Code, District policy, and other legislative tools. This presentation will outline key pieces of education and inclusion law for students, and the steps caregivers can take to increase inclusion for students with disabilities.

FASD and Schooling: Thinking Outside the (Big) Box

Kelly and Eckhard established the two FAStrack high school programs in the Surrey School District and have collectively provided specialized FASD programming for more than 15 years. Their experience suggests that while many students with FASD can be successfully supported within mainstream school settings, some learners require a smaller, specialized educational environment to access learning and to experience sustained success.

For students who may otherwise disengage from school or be at risk of leaving the education system, specialized programming can provide meaningful access to education through individualized supports, predictable routines, reduced cognitive load, and strong, trusting relationships with staff. A reduced daily schedule provides opportunities for students to engage in academic learning while also developing self-regulation, social competencies, physical activity, and community connections.

Within this environment, students are supported to develop functional academic, social-emotional, and independent-living skills while working toward graduation or an Adult Dogwood. Over time, many students demonstrate increased engagement, improved self-regulation, and greater capacity to participate in learning and community settings.

This presentation will highlight practical, strengths-based approaches used within FAStrack and the broader Education Services School community, including supported work experience, job coaching, recreation-based community participation, and coordinated transition planning.

Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing Among Young People with FASD: Translating Evidence into Action for Educators

Challenges with mental health are highly prevalent among people with FASD, but evidence-based interventions that foster wellbeing are lacking. In this presentation, researchers will discuss recent work on the mental health needs of children and youth with FASD and implications for educators, drawing on evidence from several studies led by the Canada FASD Research Network. Results from a large-scale study characterising the types of mental health needs experienced by individuals with FASD across the lifespan will be discussed, alongside insights from individuals with FASD, their caregivers, and service providers related to opportunities for promoting strengths and success in school-based contexts and beyond. Special consideration will be given to translating this research evidence into meaningful and practical strategies for educators working with youth with FASD and their support systems.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Maladaptive Neuroplasticity: Causes, Neurodevelopmental Consequences, and Evidence-Informed Solutions

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. It can impact brain development, learning, behavior, and adaptive functioning.

Alcohol exposure during critical periods of brain development can influence:

• Neural pathways
• Executive functioning
• Attention
• Memory
• Sensory regulation
• Information processing
• Self-management
• Social learning
• Academic performance

This training provides educators with an evidence-informed understanding of how prenatal alcohol exposure affects neurodevelopment and neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to learn, adapt, and reorganize throughout life. It uses a neuroplasticity framework to examine how students with FASD and other neurodivergent conditions may experience differences in learning, emotional regulation, communication, behavior, and skill development.

The training emphasizes shifting from behavior-based interpretations of student challenges toward a brain-based understanding of how FASD affects cognition, adaptive skills, and classroom functioning. While FASD involves lasting changes to the developing brain, ongoing capacity for learning and adaptation remains. Educators will:

• Learn how intentional, individualized, and consistent supports can leverage neuroplasticity to strengthen academic engagement, independence, skill development, and quality of life
• Examine integrated current research from neuroscience, behavioral health, psychogastroenterology, lifestyle medicine, nutritional neuroscience, and related interdisciplinary fields
• Learn about evidence-informed strategies to develop strengths-based approaches to support students with FASD and promote meaningful learning and long-term success

Not Your Typical Teaching Approach: Practical Brain-Based Strategies for Students with FASD and Other Complex Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and other Complex Neurodevelopmental Disorders (CNDs) are often misunderstood in educational settings because their difficulties are inconsistent, often misdiagnosed, misunderstood, hidden, and frequently mistaken for behavioural choices. Some common and traditional teaching approaches may unintentionally increase frustration, dysregulation, school avoidance, and feelings of failure for both students and educators.

Drawing from over 30 years of clinical practice, provincial leadership in FASD, and the newly released Not Your Typical Teaching Guide, this presentation translates neuroscience into practical classroom strategies that educators can begin using immediately. Participants will explore how challenges with executive functioning, communication, memory, emotional regulation, dysmaturity, social understanding, sensory processing, and the transfer of learning affect everyday classroom performance.

Rather than focusing on compliance, this session emphasizes creating environments where students feel safe, understood, and capable of success. Through real-life examples, case discussions, and practical tools, participants will learn how relatively small adjustments in communication, expectations, and classroom structure can dramatically improve engagement, reduce behavioural crises, and help students experience genuine success.

Supporting Behaviors In School

Students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are often misunderstood in the school setting, especially when behaviors cloud or mask their underlying needs. Behaviors are often misinterpreted as willful and defiant, and standard intervention strategies can be ineffective and may unintentionally create traumatic experiences. This presentation will guide participants through brain and nervous system-informed approaches to analyzing the root causes of behavior and how to incorporate these into effective behavior support plans for students.

From Overwhelmed to Empowered: Parenting through FASD with Confidence

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is complex, and so is the journey of caregiving. Every individual with FASD presents differently, and every caregiver’s experience is unique. This presentation explores how radical acceptance of the diagnosis—paired with research-based strategies—can significantly reduce caregiver stress and overwhelm. By understanding FASD as a spectrum and embracing tailored, evidence-informed approaches, caregivers can move from surviving to thriving. Join this session to learn how shifting perspectives and practical tools can transform the caregiving experience.

Underestimated and Overstimulated: Inside a Lifetime of Learning with FASD

As a lifelong learner and researcher with FASD, I move beyond pedagogy to share what learning feels like from the learner’s side of the desk. Blending story and research, this session brings participants inside memory challenges, sensory overload, social anxiety, masking, and the weight of expectations across my educational lifespan. I called my parents to pick me up from school because I did not want to be there, yet I graduated at the top of my class through every degree. Neither experience tells the whole story of me as a learner, nor can a transcript tell us whether a learner is understood, valued, supported, or thriving. Students with FASD can be missed, misunderstood, or misdiagnosed when individual challenges are recognized without understanding the neurodevelopmental differences connecting them. Moving beyond behavior management and one-size-fits-all strategies, this session explores individualized supports that honor each learner’s strengths, challenges, needs, and ways of learning.

A Neurobiological Approach to Supporting Individuals in Educational Settings

The impact of FASD is not solely brain or body, but an integrated experience of both with the nervous system as a primary conduit for how information is interpreted and presented. Pulling from research on how health impacts learning combined with insights from Polyvagal theory and applied educational neuroscience, we will explore how the synthesis of these factors impacts a student’s ability to receive appropriate and effective educational care.

When Behaviour Takes a Toll: NVR and the Wellbeing of School Communities

Educators and school personnel are increasingly supporting students with FASD and other brain-based disabilities who may experience significant dysregulation or use complex and harmful behaviours. Repeated exposure to intense interactions can affect adults’ nervous systems, confidence, relationships, and sense of professional effectiveness. Over time, this can contribute to exhaustion, isolation, burnout, and decisions to leave the profession.

Nonviolent Resistance (NVR) offers a community-based approach in which the adult and the network surrounding the student become central to the intervention. Rather than placing responsibility on one educator to resolve complex situations alone, NVR emphasizes adult presence, shared responsibility, collaboration, planned responses, de-escalation, and support among colleagues, families, and other significant adults.

This presentation will examine how shame and blame can circulate among students, parents, educators, and school personnel—particularly when conventional responses are unsuccessful. Participants will explore how a more compassionate understanding of complex behaviour can reduce isolation without minimizing harm or abandoning necessary boundaries.

Drawing on neuroscience, NVR principles, lived experience, and learning from a British Columbia school pilot, the session will offer practical ways to support the adults who support students. NVR will be considered not only as a response to complex behaviour, but also as a possible framework for strengthening educator wellbeing, team cohesion, professional sustainability, and staff retention.

Beyond the Brain: Understanding FASD from the Family Table

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a complex, whole-body, lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that extends far beyond cognitive challenges. Drawing directly from a parent’s lived experience, this presentation offers educators a rare, authentic look into the daily reality of raising a child with FASD.

Attendees will explore how sensory processing needs, executive dysfunction, and hidden trauma shape a student’s school day—and why many children use masked behavior to survive the classroom, hiding their struggles until they reach the safety of home. We will challenge traditional behavioral approaches by moving from a deficit-focused view to a strengths-based model that prioritizes safety, connection, and belonging.

Participants will gain actionable strategies for managing transitions, using concrete learning materials, and supporting essential life skills. By shifting our perspective from "they won't" to "they can't yet," parents and teachers can build a collaborative bridge that helps students with FASD thrive both academically and personally.

School Suspension and Grade Retention in Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

It is often stated that at least 20% of school-aged children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) have been suspended from school. This study examined whether school suspension and grade retention differ between school-aged children with FASD and a matched sample of children without FASD who had other clinical or behavioral diagnoses.

For this study, clinical records of 138 children with and without FASD were reviewed for developmental, educational, and disciplinary histories. Children were matched on age (mean age 9 years, 11 months) and gender. Outcomes included in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and grade retention.

The findings indicated no differences in suspension rates between children with and without FASD in this clinical sample. However, significantly more children with FASD (26%) had repeated a grade compared to the matched sample (13%). This suggests that children with FASD were more likely to experience grade retention, highlighting the importance of addressing learning and academic needs in addition to behavioral concerns. Implications for educational interventions will be discussed.

What the FASD National Education Survey Has Taught Us Over 10 Years

Navigating the K-12 educational system remains a challenge for many students with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) and their families. Drawing on ten years of FASD National Education Survey data, this presentation will discuss the barriers students with FASD and their caregivers face when trying to receive appropriate FASD-informed services and support in the classroom as well as the lack of FASD-specific knowledge and training received by educators and administrators.

Our findings demonstrate that over the past decade, little progress has been made in bridging the gap between family needs and professional preparation. This leads to frustration on all sides, poor educational outcomes for people with FASD, and a lack of preparation for post-secondary life. We will discuss data trends and how they can inform policy and systems change at the state and national level. Special attention will be paid to how the inclusion of FASD as a named condition or qualifying category under IDEA could help to support students, families, and professionals.

Disentangling Diagnostic Overlap: A Hybrid Scoping Review of Neurodevelopmental Profiles in FASD and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are prevalent developmental disabilities with overlapping neurobehavioral presentations. FASD remains undetected in more than 80% of affected individuals, in part because of challenges differentiating its features from other developmental disabilities, including autism. Published co-occurrence rates also vary widely (5–72% in clinical samples). Clarifying shared and distinct profiles may improve diagnostic accuracy, provider education, and access to services.

Methods

This plenary will examine clinical and research perspectives on FASD and ASD, drawing from an ongoing hybrid scoping/umbrella review (OSF K5398). Seven domains relevant to developmental differential diagnosis are examined: sensory processing, language, social communication, social skills, adaptive functioning, executive functioning, and self-regulation. Findings will identify shared and distinctive features, research gaps, and implications for diagnosis and intervention.

Results

Four reviewers are conducting a PRISMA-guided review across three databases (1,378 non-duplicate articles screened), with substantial screening reliability (κ=.754, p<.001). Findings will characterize patterns of similarities and differences across the seven domains and integrate prior literature on prevalence and co-occurrence. Visual tools will support translation of findings to identify areas of needed research to support future clinical differential diagnosis.

Discussion

Both FASD and ASD populations experience stigma and barriers to equitable care, although recognition and service systems have developed differently. Improved understanding of their overlapping and distinct presentations can strengthen differential diagnosis, interdisciplinary education, research, policy, and access to appropriate supports.

Understanding Mental Health Risk and Resilience in Children with FASD: A Whole-Body Perspective

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) experience highly variable mental health and behavioural outcomes. While some children experience substantial challenges with anxiety, mood, and emotional regulation, others show remarkable resilience. Understanding the factors that contribute to these different trajectories may help us move beyond a one-size-fits-all view of FASD and toward more individualized, strengths-based supports.

This presentation will share emerging findings from the University of Calgary’s IMMUNE-HERO study, which examines mental health alongside immune, physiological, and whole-body health in children with FASD. We explore how differences in biological systems may contribute to vulnerability or resilience to mental health challenges, and why behaviours observed at school may reflect much more than what is happening in the brain alone. We will also introduce our emerging work examining the gut microbiome and gut–brain–immune pathways as potential contributors to mental health and wellbeing in FASD.

Together, these findings highlight FASD as a whole-body condition and provide a new lens for understanding individual differences among learners. Implications for recognizing and supporting mental health, wellbeing, and resilience in educational settings will be discussed.

Seeing Strengths First: Strength-Based FASD Practice in Action

This session will help to re-frame thinking when working with students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) through a strength-based lens. It will provide practical strategies to support regulation, communication, and success. Learn to easily interpret 'challenging' behaviours in a whole different light, while discovering creative strategies that will be beneficial for all students.

You will leave this session with new ideas for increasing the overall success of your classroom, as well as having a refreshed mindset that will leave you feeling energized and ready to take on the school year!

The Key Ingredient is Mindfulness: Strategies from a FASD Keyworker, Clinical Counsellor, & Community Educator

When mindfulness has become a catch phrase these days, how do we support youth who have tried it, but didn’t find it useful, or were left feeling more dysregulated than before? Throughout this presentation I will incorporate short mindfulness-based exercises, that align with neurodiverse-affirming protocols and advanced therapeutic modalities. How can we find comfort in mindfulness for ourselves, so we can naturally help co-regulate our clients, students, family members, and overall communities? The FASD Keyworkers from across BC’s Lower Mainland have a crucial role beyond co-regulation, and I will also provide a brief overview of how they support families in innovative ways, while working to support their wrap-around communities. The question that I keep coming back to, is how can we help educators prioritize learning rich opportunities that integrate trauma-informed and neurodiverse-affirming strategies, when the needs of the classrooms outweigh the available supports? Using a mix of research, step by step meditation instructions, and tangible exercises, this presentation is designed to leave you feeling more regulated than before the session. At best, I hope you leave with more ease and confidence in co-regulating those kids who might want it the least, but need it the most.

8 Magic Keys: The Real Story Behind a Grassroots Idea That Changed FASD Education Worldwide

It started with a conversation. In 1997, Deb Evensen and Jan Lutke discussed the practical strategies that would become the 8 Magic Keys, unknowingly setting off on a journey neither of them expected. This presentation shares that origin story and traces the revolutionary path the Keys have traveled since, culminating in a bold new chapter: the latest evolution led by POPFASD.

From Invisible Exclusion to Classroom Inclusion: Practical Tools and Grassroots Action for FASD in Education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Across Aotearoa New Zealand, as in many communities globally, ākonga/students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) frequently face and experience 'invisible exclusion'—a reality where neurodevelopmental differences are misunderstood as wilful and behavioural defiance, leading to disciplinary actions, disengagement, pressures put on whānau/families, and 'informal' removals from school. To address these systemic barriers, FASD-CAN has developed a suite of initiatives designed to share practical strategies with educators, and foster genuine kura/school inclusion.

In this presentation we will share three of FASD-CAN Aotearoa's key education initiatives:

• FASD Training Course for Educators - Kete into Practice: An introduction to our core educator resource - an in-depth, practical training course to support kaiko/educators to understand and better support FASD in our kura/schools.
• FASD KEA (Kiwi Education and Attendance) Tracker: A tool designed to capture, track informal exclusion and attendance barriers, and shed light on what is actually happening at the 'grassroots' level that is being missed in government statistics.
• FASD Developmental Age Profile Worksheets and Guides: We will introduce our new initiative aimed to help educators identify and focus on developmental and functional age, rather than chronological age.
• We will explore the 'why, the how, and the what' of these initiatives. By reflecting on these initiatives, we seek to promote thought and reflection for international educators and advocates dedicated to FASD ākonga/student inclusion.

Learning with FASD: Development of an evidence-based professional learning course on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder for Australian educators

Background

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) affects an estimated 3.64% of Australians, meaning there is likely one child with FASD in every Australian classroom. However, FASD remains underdiagnosed and underrecognised in Australia’s education system. Learning with FASD is a website that provides evidence-based resources to assist educators to understand and support students with FASD. In 2026 we aimed to address the gap in FASD training for the education sector developing a short, evidence-based professional learning course for educators.

Methods

Development was informed by focus groups and interviews with educators, parents/caregivers of young people with FASD, and FASD and education experts.

Results

Focus groups with educators (N = 16) and parents/caregivers (N = 10), and interviews with experts (N = 4) were used to identify key areas of focus for the professional learning course. Priority areas included: i) information that helps educators to understand FASD and how it may present in a school environment, ii) evidence-based actionable strategies to support learning and behaviour; and iii) information that assists educators to understand the impact of FASD on parents and caregivers and helps them to work collaboratively with families. Based on these findings, a one-hour online professional learning course was developed. The course is divided into three modules that focus on: 1) Understanding FASD, 2) Classroom strategies, and 3) Family engagement. The course contains evidence-based information in a mix of formats (e.g., video, text) and is aligned with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. An evaluation is currently underway.

Beyond the Box: Flexible High‑School Supports for FASD Learners

Supporting youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in high‑school settings requires intentional connection, flexible programming, and innovative pathways that honour each learner’s strengths. This presentation explores a multi‑layered approach that begins with establishing a connection point — a trusted person and place that anchors students who may have masked their needs in earlier grades. We highlight creative, individualized programming such as leadership‑based credit opportunities, small‑group skill development, and collaborative planning with administrators to design graduation pathways that feel achievable and empowering.

Our work emphasizes thinking outside the box through flexible pacing, multimodal learning, adapted coursework, and alternative graduation routes. We also focus on preparing students for life beyond school by expanding their world: supported work experiences, visual systems, advocacy skill‑building, and guided future‑planning tools like PATH.

Grounded in promising practices, this session demonstrates how innovative structures, relational support, and intentional flexibility can help FASD learners thrive academically, socially, and in their transition to adulthood.

MILE for the Classroom

This presentation introduces the Math Interactive Learning Experience (MILE), an innovative, scientifically validated program specifically designed to improve math outcomes for children with math challenges including children with FASD. Extensively studied and adapted within the Canadian educational context, MILE is now fully available for classroom implementation.

This session will trace the evolution of the MILE program from its clinical research foundations to its current practical application in diverse classrooms. Attendees hear about the program's strong efficacy data, which demonstrates gains in student mathematics achievement as well as boosting educator competency and instructional confidence. MILE is supported by a comprehensive suite of ready-to-use training resources and professional development tools accessible on its website. Participants will gain a practical understanding of how to seamlessly integrate MILE into their daily curriculum, utilize the accompanying educator resources, and leverage strengths-based strategies to foster mathematical confidence.

Bridging the Gap: Supporting Youth with FASD as They Transition to Adulthood

The Lakeland Centre for FASD has been providing prevention, diagnosis, and intervention services to individuals and families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) for more than 25 years. In 2009, we recognized a significant gap in services for youth preparing for adulthood and developed our Transition Program. Over the past 17 years, the program has continued to evolve through experience, innovation, and collaboration.

Our Transition Program brings together youth, families, schools, and community partners to develop an individualized transition plan that focuses on the young person's strengths, goals, and vision for adulthood. Together, we identify priorities, assign responsibilities, and build a coordinated support network to help youth successfully transition to adult services, education, employment, and community life. This collaborative approach helps ensure that no one person carries the responsibility alone and that youth are supported long after the plan is complete.

This presentation will share the evolution of the program, the successes we've celebrated, the challenges we've encountered, and the lessons we've learned over the past 17 years. Participants will leave with practical ideas they can adapt within their own organizations to strengthen transition planning and improve outcomes for youth with FASD.