Demand Avoidance Syndrome

[NotThrowAwayMyShot]

Finally after years of waiting for referrals & trying to get people to take us seriously DS has a diagnoses of an ASD.

Part of the issue was that he doesn't fit the box. He has a lot of empathy & easily shows his emotions but he has sensory issues. He doesn't cope well with changes to routines in that things like non uniform days send hi into meltdown but unlike dd who had to follow a strict routine, he never has. He has issues with food & the feel of clothing etc.

There have been numerous problems at school, disorganisation, homework issues, not handing in homework, not following instructions, he has big social issues too.

We are going for a meeting next week with his school to discuss the support he should be getting. Use of a laptop has helped for example. Some teachers he hasn't problem with, but most see him as disruptive.

He will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid certain things & gets very stressed if you keep pressing him.

Yesterday I read something about pathological demand avoidance & everything clicked, even down to the being good at things like drama. His ed psych report does mention demand avoidance but it was a private report which we struggled to get school to accept.

So my question is the strategies reccomended for asd children don't seem to be working as Well as school would like, (he goes to a grammar school) he is incredibly stressed, has a real downer on himself.

What can we say to school next week? What suggestions can we make? Dh is a teacher & has recently done some training on asd & adhd & I the support children at his school get is very good. But we could do with some advice.

He's not under camhs anymore as far as they are concerned the private report is sufficient & they have huge waiting lists. I have been offered a 6 week course but it's on a Tuesday morning & I work full time.

Try the pdasociety.org they have an info section for families and teachers. Good luck

Yes I found that website. It was eye opening.

Sorry that was so brief but a meltdown over being asked to do his teeth took over! Iv just found out about pda and odd and parts of it fit but some things still dont ring 100%. Does your son seem to almost pick his meltdowns? Mine is absolutly fine being asked to do things like putting his socks on when HE wants to go somewhere but if its me asking him to do it so that we can go to school its a complete nightmare. How old was your son when you started to question if the behaviour was extreme? Mine is 6 and like your boy shows empathy, makes eye contact and has low level sensory issues - not too bad but cutting nails and brushing teeth involve drama.

Hi op

If you come and post in special needs there are lots of us with demand avoidant children who can give support, poltergoose is very hot on this topic

For my two penneth it's it anxiety related? DD's pda is hugely anxiety and control driven, when you look at it from that perspective you can often see what's likely to cause it to spiral and sometimes use strategies to deflect a situation

I thought this was the special needs section?

Our big issue is his (selective) school say his behaviour is not acceptable for a school
Of their type but our local s cinders has failed 3 OFSTEDs (as have the other schools in the same academy chain) & a report just published says the chain was the worst in the country children (boys especially) make little progress & they have a very high rate of excluding SEN children.

The PDA Society is at pdasociety.org.uk. The link above takes you to a decorators site.
Ds1 (16) is very recently diagnosed and I am having to rethink my entire approach to him.

No this is the education section subsection Sen

There is a whole special needs board with an education subsection where there are dozens of us with youngsters just like yours