While the "4-Digit Diagnostic Code" includes these criteria for three of its diagnostic categories, it refers to this condition as static encephalopathy. The behavioral effects of ARND are not necessarily unique to alcohol however, so use of the term must be within the context of confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure. ARND may be gaining acceptance over the terms FAE and ARBD to describe FASD conditions with central nervous system abnormalities or behavioral or cognitive abnormalities or both due to prenatal alcohol exposure without regard to growth deficiency or FAS facial features.The following criteria must be fully met for a diagnosis of ARND or static encephalopathy:
Growth deficiency: Growth or height may range from normal to minimally deficient
FAS facial features: Minimal or no FAS facial features present
Central nervous system damage: Clinically significant structural, neurological, or functional impairment in three or more of the Ten Brain Domains
Prenatal alcohol exposure: Confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure;0

Alcohol-related birth defects
Alcohol-related birth defects (ARBD), formerly known as possible fetal alcohol effect (PFAE), was a term proposed as an alternative to FAE and PFAE. The IOM presents ARBD as a list of congenital anomalies that are linked to maternal alcohol use but have no key features of FASD. PFAE and ARBD have fallen out of favor because these anomalies are not necessarily specific to maternal alcohol consumption and are not criteria for diagnosis of FASD. The Canadian guidelines recommend that ARBD should not be used as an umbrella term or diagnostic category for FASD.
Unlikely: No evidence of CNS damage. Structural
Structural abnormalities of the brain are observable, physical damage to the brain or brain structures caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. Structural impairments may include microcephaly (small head size) of two or more standard deviations below the average, or other abnormalities in brain structure (e.g., agenesis of the corpus callosum, cerebellar hypoplasia).Microcephaly is determined by comparing head circumference (often called occipitofrontal circumference, or OFC) to appropriate OFC growth charts. Other structural impairments must be observed through medical imaging techniques by a trained physician. Because imaging procedures are expensive and relatively inaccessible to most people, diagnosis of FAS is not frequently made via structural impairments, except for microcephaly.Evidence of a CNS structural impairment due to prenatal alcohol exposure will result in a diagnosis of FAS, and neurological and functional impairments are highly likely.During the first trimester of pregnancy, alcohol interferes with the migration and organization of brain cells, which can create structural deformities or deficits within the brain. During the third trimester, damage can be caused to the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory, learning, emotion, and encoding visual and auditory information, all of which can create neurological and functional CNS impairments as well.As of 2002, there were 25 reports of autopsies on infants known to have FAS. The first was in 1973, on an infant who died shortly after birth.