Pathological Demand Avoidance

[shenzi]

Does anyone have any experience of this? It's a diagnosis I have only just heard of and has been mentioned in the context of a child I work with who also displays some asd traits.

[Ineedmorepatience]

There are some PDA groups on Facebook, someone I know uses them and gets good advice from them!

I think most people living with children on the autism spectrum experience varying degrees of demand avoidance!

[shenzi]

It seems like something more than the standard autistic demand avoidance, something more controlling. Lots of the behaviours look similar to attachment disorder.

[senvet]

I heard it described as a panic attack when demand are made, and control is a way of reducing the stress in case a demand is made.

Good to see someone with care of a child doing the research. So many parents just face judgement about poor parenting, and kids face behaviour-type discipline which is unlikely to work, so please give yourself a pat on the back!

[shenzi]

Thank you senvet, but I need all the help I can get This child can be lovely but can also be very violent towards me and typical autism strategies don't really work/half work/work for a while and then stop. I am constantly having to find new ways of working with them. Parents have different ways of managing (not making demands) which aren't possible in a school setting so it is a hard one. I can see that the child is attempting to control situations in order to reduce stress but on the flipside the more control I give them the worse and more boundary-pushing their behaviour becomes.

[OneInEight]

I was at a talk by a psychologist a couple of weeks ago and the first thing she suggested is making sure sensory needs are met so starting with if it hasn't already been done a sensory audit. If the child is already on red alert because of discomfort because of noise, smell, touch etc then it is not going to take much to push them over the edge. Only then does she begin to tackle the behavioural issues. It made an awful lot of sense too me!