The Foothills Fetal Alcohol Society is shining the light on a little known issue.

Alaine Kowal says many people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder can end up in trouble with the law.

"As I've been going through statistics I've been finding that between eleven and 23 per cent of youth in the justice system or the correctional system does have FASD," she says. "It's a piece of that system that really isn't addressed and a lot of the professionals in that system don't really know the best way to work with clients who have FASD so we'd just like to shed a little light on that."

According to the group a recent study of young offenders with FASD showed their psycho-legal abilities such as their understanding and appreciation of legal jargon, factual knowledge of criminal procedure, the nature and object of the proceedings, and the ability to participate in a defence and communicate with counsel were significantly deficient in about 90 per cent of participants compared to young offenders without FASD.

Those with FASD are faced with a number of difficulties because of their impairments including language comprehension, memory, attention, and reasoning which may place them at further risk for being evaluated negatively by those in the criminal-legal environment.