FASD Center for Excellence

Reach to Teach: Educating Elementary and Middle School Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

Reach to Teach is a valuable resource for parents and teachers to use in educating elementary and middle school children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The booklet provides a basic introduction to FASD, and provides tools to enhance communication between parents and teachers.

Parents with a child identified as having an FASD can reach out to the child’s teachers, school principals, special education professionals, religious school personnel, and camp counselors by passing along copies of this booklet.

Teachers and other staff, in turn, can reach out to the child, using specific classroom strategies to assist learning. These strategies include structuring a caring and consistent environment, shifting attitudes and improving understanding, learning to translate misbehavior, changing classroom teaching style, restructuring the physical space in the classroom, and engaging the whole school community.

The booklet contains useful forms that parents and teachers can use to better communicate about schedules, strategies, and problem-solving. There are also lists of other available FASD resources on the Web, on video, and in print.