It's a disability that, in many, can make learning difficult and understanding the connection between cause and affect is a challenge.

A fetus' exposure to alcohol can lead to struggles for that person throughout his or her lifetime.

The Yukon government is putting $643,000 towards a new study to determine the prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and other cognitive impairments among Yukon's adult population in the corrections system.

When completed, the three-year study will be the first study of its kind in Canada to be led by a provincial or territorial government.

"The hope is to better understand the extent of the issue, of FASD in the correctional population for the Yukon. At the end of the day, if that can inform service delivery, that would be one of our goals,” said Kailey LeMoel, the study's manager.

Statistics on FASD in Canada are hard to come by. The most commonly cited estimate, coming from Health Canada, is that 9.1 per 1,000 live births or roughly one per cent of the population are affected.

Trying to boil that number down further, to adults with FASD in the correctional system, is an even more difficult task.

Researcher Kaitlyn McLachlan, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Alberta, said only two well-known studies in Canada have been done that come even close to answering that question.

The first was completed in 1999 in British Columbia and looked at the rate of FASD in an inpatient assessment unit for children with mental health needs.

"That study found approximately 23 per cent of the kids assessed over a one year period had FASD, which was quite high relative to the general population,” McLachlan said.

A second study, completed by the federal government through the Correctional Service of Canada last year, looked at 100 offenders at one of the regional intake units in Manitoba.

It found about a 10 per cent diagnosis rate.

"That rate could have been a little bit higher,” McLachlan said. "But in adults it can be quite difficult to confirm mom's alcohol use because all of these (people) are much older, sometimes there's not always a family member around who can corroborate.” When it comes to diagnosing an adult with FASD, the age of the person is the first of many hurdles.

Add to that a history with the criminal justice system and things can get even more difficult.

"In the correctional system diagnosis is particularly tricky because when we are trying to diagnose FASD we are trying to pinpoint current deficits back to a cause and that's alcohol exposure,” McLachlan said. "But among offenders in the criminal justice system we have really a lot of competing factors that could explain many of the deficits we see.”

That can include things like a higher risk for substance abuse issues or brain injuries from other causes, she said.

Mike McCann, the executive director of the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon (FASSY), says it's important for the community to recognize FASD as a brain-based disability.

"We have yet to get our heads around that it's a physical disability, it's a brain injury,” he said.

McCann said that many people with FASD appear as though they understand what's being asked of them, but they don't.

"More often, it's the case where people can't do something, not that they won't.”

How those deficits translate to spending time in jail has not been scientifically proven, but McLachlan said there is good preliminary evidence to suspect significant overrepresentation of people with FASD in the justice system.

"Prenatal alcohol exposure leads to a number of brain and behavioral deficits such as impulsivity, poor decision making, poor planning skills, a real challenge functioning independently. difficulty understanding rules, learning cause and effect,” she said.

"All of those facts we know from the general population are risk factors for getting in trouble with the law.”

Both McCann and McLachlan agree that many people with FASD struggle once they are involved with the justice system when it comes to things like parole conditions.

"Research has found very high rates of being in and out of jail a lot, not necessary from new charges, but from breaching conditions,” she said.

In the Yukon, a local child and youth diagnostic team is available to diagnosis young people with possible FASD. When it comes to adults, that work is done by a team from Alberta that visits the territory once a year.

The assessment for FASD involves a myriad of testing including neuropsychological tests, said Pat Living, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Services.

The adult team sees a maximum of about 10 people per visit.

"That's based on referrals,” she said. "We may have more referrals so they may not get to see everybody, or we may have fewer referrals.”

Working alongside the Department of Justice's research project, Living said her department is in the process of creating its own local adult assessment team, which it hopes will be up and running by 2014.

McLachlan credits the Yukon with "leading the country” when it comes to looking at FASD in corrections on a provincial or territorial level.

"Aside from the Correctional Service of Canada at the federal scale, no one else is really at this stage. The information we get from this will really be the first snapshot of what the issue looks like in the territory. One of the other important goals of this work is to be able to help other jurisdictions take this research approach and understand what their own jurisdictional needs are.”