Little is known of the long term outcomes of children with NAS diagnoses, including how they perform in school. In this study, researchers collected health data for all children born in the state of New South Wales, Australia, between 2000 and 2006. They linked this health data to school test scores.

Title: Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome and High School Performance

Published in Pediatrics, February 2017

Summary in plain English :

There were 2234 children with NAS diagnoses and a control group of 4330 kids matched for gestation, socioeconomic status and gender. A third group of almost 600,000 kids made up the rest of the population of school kids who took Australia’s National Reading and Math tests in 3rd, 5th and 7th grades.

Results showed test scores for the NAS group were significantly lower in 3rd grade. Out of a maximum score of 1000, the 3 groups scored as follows;

NAS 359

Control 410

Remaining Population 421

The deficit was progressive. By 7th grade, the NAS group scored lower than the 5th graders in the general population.

Conclusions included:

A NAS diagnosis is strongly associated with poor and deteriorating school performance.

Children with NAS and their families must be identified early and provided with support to minimize the consequences of poor educational outcomes. This is because school performance is one of the most important outcomes of childhood. And the ability to do well in school is consistently related to adult success. Also, learning problems may not be recognized until a child enters school. However, simple and cost-effective strategies are strikingly beneficial in improving outcomes.

More about test scores:

Children with NAS had significantly lower scores than either the control group or the New South Wales general population in EVERY GRADE and EVERY DOMAIN of testing.

By 7th grade, 38% of NAS kids did not meet the minimum requirements to advance to the next grade, in at least 1 subject. This compares to only 18% of the control group and 15% of the larger population.

Why is this report, the first to measure academic outcomes at a population level for children with a history of NAS, important? Results show that a diagnosis of NAS is associated with poor performance in standardized testing from as early as 3rd grade (age 8 or 9). And school failure is of great concern as it increases risk of poor adult outcomes including depression in women, criminal activity and drug use.

What can we do? The research team stated we must take advantage of the fact that many children with NAS can be identified from birth. Interventions are much more effective when they are started early.

Many thanks to the authors of this article: Oei JL, Melhuish E, Uebel H, Azzam N, Breen C, Burns L, Hilder L, Bajuk B, Abdel-Latif ME, Ward M, Feller JM, Falconer J, Clews S, Eastwood J, Li A, Wright IM.

The full report is accessible here: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-2651

To watch a video summary of this report, click here: https://youtu.be/quIGGZuS1dU