A clinic here that diagnoses fetal alcohol syndrome and related disorders is one of three statewide that will share in $100,000 in state funding next year aimed at keeping the service available.

The clinic, operated by Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital, is one of three satellite clinics in the University of Washington's Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention & Diagnostic Network. The other two are in Everett and Yakima, Wash. The clinic here has been operating since 1997.

The three clinics each will receive a portion of $100,000 that the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services' Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA) has allocated to the network for its next fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2009.

The Sacred Heart clinic's share of the money will be based on how many children it evaluates during the fiscal year, says Helle Jorgensen, the program's coordinator here. It costs between $2,000 and $3,000 to evaluate one child, Jorgensen says. The clinic reviews the cases of up to two children each month, and has a long waiting list of children who have been referred to it because they display symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Fetal alcohol syndrome consists of physical and mental disabilities, characterized by abnormal facial features, growth deficiencies, and central nervous system problems, that are the result of alcohol use by a mother during pregnancy.

Sacred Heart has been funding the clinic since it took the operation over from the Spokane County Health District in 2003. State funding will help ensure the continuation of the program here, at least during fiscal 2009, Jorgensen says, but adds that it's unclear whether the program will be expanded or if the state funding will continue beyond next year.

Currently, a team of professionals that includes a pediatrician, a clinical psychologist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist, meets once a month to evaluate testing that has been done on children referred to the clinic for diagnosis. Some of the tests are done at the clinic, but often some of the learning tests already have been administered by the child's school, and others might already have been done by the child's pediatrician or other professionals.

The fetal alcohol diagnostic team reviews the tests, which include intelligence tests, growth and development charts, an analysis of facial features that can indicate fetal alcohol syndrome, and other related tests. After reviewing the data and diagnosing disorders ranging from alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder to full-blown fetal alcohol syndrome, the team provides recommendations for therapeutic interventions for the alcohol-affected children it evaluates.

Those therapies include speech therapy and occupational therapy, although the clinic doesn't provide them. About 10 percent of the children who are referred have full-blown fetal alcohol syndrome, she says.

The program serves children from infanthood up, Jorgensen says. She says that though it's best to intervene as early as possible, learning disabilities often don't become apparent until children are in school.