Pathological Demand Avoidance: The Link School’sexperience

Sandy Turner,principal at The Link School, outlines the school’sapproach to supporting children with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA).

PDA is an atypicalautisticspectrum condition where children have an anxiety-driven needtoavoid everydaylife demands and to always remain in control.

Of course,weface demands everyday in the spaces that we inhabit,be it school, work,leisure or home. In aclassroom setting there are direct demandssuchas, “Come in and sit down,” subtle demands, “It’s timefor lunch,” and silent demands such as seeingpaper andpens outonatable readyfor alesson. Fora childwithPDA,thiscan be overwhelming Teachersunderstandably expectchildren to cooperate with school rules to promote an ordered andcalmlearning environment.

Forchildren and young people with PDA, pushing to comply to thesedemands canresult in panic whichmay lead to lashing outormeltdowns

It’simportant to note that the anxiety stops children from doing things they like, as well as things they don’t like, which causes frustration and leads to low self-esteem.

However,peoplewithPDA alsoseemto have better social understanding and communication skills than othersonthe spectrum,which can be usedtotheir advantage.Children quickly become masters at distractingstaff or making all kinds of elaborateexcuses astowhy they cannotdothe expected work.

PDA: WHATDOESITLOOK LIKE?

Resists ordinary demands

Socialstrategies toavoid demands

Impulsive

Extreme mood swings

Obsessive –peopleorthings

Need to be incontrol

Comfortableinrole play and pretend

Hold on to negative feelings

Appear sociable– but lacksocial understanding

Sandy visit https://bit.ly/3X4t4aS https://www.ohcat.org/