At first meeting, the best side of Kevin Teichen’s personality comes out–the friendly, outgoing man with the easy laugh. But there’s a troubling side–the one that’s impulsive, makes bad decisions and falls into criminal activity.
Psychologists who have examined Teichen say he cannot see the consequences of his actions, so it’s not surprising that he has had brushes with the law. In June he landed in DuPage County Jail for the fourth time, and this week he was released to a group home as part of his probation.
For all his 23 years, Teichen’s adoptive parents, Elmhurst residents Walt and Kathy Teichen, couldn’t defeat their son’s demons.
Doctors initially told them that their son had attention deficit disorder. But his behavior seemed more severe than the typical ADD child, and the normal interventions didn’t work. For much of the time, Teichen languished in special education programs.
Recently, however, the family got a diagnosis that they felt finally explained his behavior: fetal alcohol effect, or FAE.
The diagnosis gave the family some long-awaited understanding but also left them with much to do. As experts who have studied fetal alcohol disorders attest, many young adults like Teichen go their lives without being identified. Even youths who are diagnosed have trouble finding services to meet their needs. They don’t always qualify for mental health programs because FAE is not considered a quantifiable mental illness.
But now the Teichens hope to offer an option for people like their son by opening the first home in Illinois for young adults with fetal alcohol disorders. If realized, their model would be among only a few such facilities in the nation, providing a highly structured behavior management program.
Though the Teichens have little information about their son’s birth mother and her alcohol use, psychologists told his family that his behavior problems clearly match symptoms of patients who have suffered brain damage from alcohol exposure in the womb. The family received an FAE diagnosis from a Northwestern University psychiatrist and a Peoria neuropsychologist who has worked with many FAE victims.
Both observed myriad behavioral and emotional problems such as extreme impulsivity, an almost complete lack of social interaction with peers and an obvious need for constant supervision for simple daily tasks.
Much research has been done on fetal alcohol syndrome, or FAS, which carries the more obvious physical symptoms, such as a flat midface, small eye openings, a thin upper lip and a short nose.
Few obvious symptoms
In more recent years, though, there has also been attention to cases like Teichen’s, where there are few obvious physical symptoms but a range of severe learning, emotion and attention problems.
Some experts who have studied fetal alcohol disorders are encouraged by the Teichens’ efforts. They argue that specially tailored treatments–including constant supervision, guidance and encouragement–can make a big difference.
“There’s just a huge need for this,” said Ann Streissguth, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle who has studied fetal alcohol disorders for three decades.
Streissguth’s research has uncovered disheartening statistics. She recently followed a group of more than 400 people diagnosed with FAS or FAE as youths in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s and found that 60 percent had had some kind of trouble with the law, from arrests to prison time. About 12 percent of kids under 12 had some interaction with the juvenile justice system. Only 20 percent of those over 21 were able to work independently. Sixty percent of the children either dropped out of school or had been kicked out or suspended.
Dr. Ira Chasnoff, president of the Chicago-based Children’s Research Triangle and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, is a leading researcher on FAE. Chasnoff said his work–now being funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–has shown that traditional methods for treating children with brain dysfunctions have big limitations when it comes to fetal alcohol disorders.
“The usual kind of interventions for [ADD]–for example, the different kinds of medications and different behavior management strategies–don’t work for these children,” he said.
Even with a high school diploma from a special education program in Elmhurst, Teichen gained minimal skills. Near graduation, tests showed he read at a 6th-grade level and had just 3rd-grade-level math skills.
His social life has been heartbreaking. Attempts at soccer teams, Boy Scouts and play groups all failed while he was growing up because he never learned how to get along with others.
“Everybody thought I was annoying,” Teichen said.
Though he has held some odd jobs, including recent work as a cabdriver, Teichen’s struggles with the law worsened over the last few years, and he has had a string of misdemeanors and a felony arrest. Teichen said he walked out of a Target store with a basket full of electronics, never thinking he would be caught. While driving a cab, he kept a customer’s credit card number and used it to charge meals for fellow cabdrivers, his father says. He wrote bad checks, using an old account of his father’s.
Once, while off his medications, he pushed his father out of frustration and was charged with domestic battery. Though his father was not hurt, the Teichens called police to calm their son down, and he was subsequently arrested.
Teichen was most recently placed in jail on charges of possession and intent to defraud for using the customer’s credit card.
Although the Teichens could have bailed their son out of jail, they decided not to. Jail, they say, was the safest place for him until terms of his probation could be reached.
“There’s no place to put him where he could be safe from himself,” Walt Teichen said.
On Monday, he was sent to a group home run by Trinity Services as part of his two-year probation.
`Connections aren’t made’
Dr. Deitra Teichmann, a Peoria neuropsychologist who has diagnosed many youths with fetal alcohol disorders, said Teichen’s criminal history is typical for youths with FAE. “They can know right from wrong. They know what a criminal act is. But when they’re in that situation, it somehow doesn’t apply. The connections aren’t made,” she said.
Encouraged by the success of one of the nation’s only residential homes for fetal alcohol disorders, in rural Minnesota, the Teichens want to apply many of the same approaches in their residential program.
The couple have a potential donor for land in Hopkins Park and a commitment from a building contractor for help with labor and supplies. They are also an informal mission project of the First Congregational Church of Western Springs.
Marv Baldwin, chairman of the church’s outreach ministry, took up the Teichens’ cause after learning more of their son’s story. He is confident the Teichens’ experience will move enough people to fund the project.
“Walt and Kathy badly want to do the right thing–not only for their son but for other people as well,” Baldwin said.
