A handicap in hiding

Roberta Coraggio fits in as best she can at Palo Verde High School.

Seventeen-year-old Roberta Coraggio is depressed.
A mean kid on the school bus smacked her in the leg and arm on the way home this afternoon, wounding her emotionally and physically.
"A lot of kids are very cruel to her," says the girl's stepfather, Scott Coraggio, 29. "People take advantage of her, and they hurt her. The girls all want to beat her up."
While her condition's never been officially diagnosed, it appears the junior at Palo Verde High School has fetal alcohol effects.
Many children with FAE have serious disabilities, but not all the facial features of a person with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Roberta is one of about 2,500 Tucson children with FAE who struggles through school. Many of them fail academically and socially because of the brain damage caused by maternal drinking.
"She's gotten passed over a lot in school," said Roberta's mother, Ann Coraggio. "When she was younger, she was very quiet, rather passive. She would just go with the crowd."
Ann is constantly at bat for her child, educating people about her disability.
"I've given information about FAE to teachers, so they can understand her."
From birth, it was clear the child had problems.
"Roberta was developmentally delayed," Ann said. "She was slow at everything - crawling, walking, talking. Everything came later to her."
As she grew, so did her problems. "Her grades in elementary school were real good, but she had a hard time sitting in her seat. She did well until junior high at Maxwell. She just lost all ability to concentrate and to find her classes."
It wasn't until four years ago that her parents connected Ann's drinking during pregnancy with Roberta's problems.
The Coraggios were frustrated with Roberta's behavior, and Scott's counselor brought up the possibility that the girl had been damaged in the womb. Roberta's doctor agrees that her behavior is consistent with FAE.
"It was very hard when I was pregnant with Roberta," said Ann, 38. "The man I was married to then was very physically abusive, and there was a lot of emotional abuse."
Roberta was born in 1980, outside of Arizona. "My in-laws were alcoholics, and part of the life was drinking and smoking pot," she recalled. "I had never heard anything about it being dangerous to drink during pregnancy. My in-laws told me it was OK to have a drink a day. They said it wouldn't hurt the baby. So I drank beer and whiskey on and off. I think I'd have a few drinks once a month. It's hard to remember."