Raising awareness on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder – Anishinabek News

September 26, 2025

THUNDER BAY — Pays Plat’s Chris Mushquash highlighted how Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder affects people in different ways at the Bewiidookaagejig Northern Superior Regional FASD gathering on Sept. 11 at the Superior Inn in Thunder Bay.

“Alcohol is a very powerful toxic chemical when it comes to brain development and physical development during the prenatal period,” says Mushquash, professor in the Department of Psychology at Lakehead University, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction and director of the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research at Lakehead University. “There’s physical, behavioural, cognitive, so intellectual, and mood-related signs and symptoms that may be observed without any real consensus for a typical presentation, and that’s one of the other difficulties with spectrum disorders. Whether it’s Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder, the difference in symptom presentation between people can be massive, like so big that it’s hard to categorize people in the same diagnostic category, but more importantly, really hard to design any types of services that capture the needs of everybody.”

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