This can lead to presentations in some people – including autistic women and girls, and PDA individuals – being missed altogether, misunderstood or misdiagnosed, which can in turn lead to poor outcomes.Īll research points to early identification and tailored support being the best predictor of positive long-term outcomes. We know that autism is dimensional – it involves a complex and overlapping pattern of strengths, differences and challenges that present differently from one individual to another and in the same individual over time or in different environments.Ī cluster of traits can be called a presentation or a profile – in some cases this can be quite different from what some people think autism ‘looks like’. Many autistic advocates embrace the social model of disability and view a range of neurological differences as being part of a natural human variation (neurodiversity). The National Autistic Society explains autism as “a lifelong developmental disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world”. Whilst autism is a widely recognised term, our understanding of the full breadth and complexity of the autism spectrum is still evolving. PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) is widely understood to be a profile on the autism spectrum, though we are still at an early stage in our understanding and PDA research is in its infancy. Courses & events for social care professionals.Courses & events for healthcare professionals.Courses & events for education professionals.Benefits of understanding a PDA profile.These are parents who often have tried everything (therapy, medication, behavior plans, private schools, etc.) to no avail, leaving them feeling hopeless, helpless, and incredibly frustrated. It can dominate the household, wreak havoc with marriages, and affect siblings. PDAers often enjoy and engage in role playing, sometimes to an extreme.Īll of this makes these individuals highly misunderstood often they have experienced years of trauma (being persistently in fight or flight mode), and the years of trauma bring on new layers of anxiety and depression. Conversely, they might do well at home (if there are low demands) but fall apart with the demands of school. So, they might do well at school (camouflage) then completely fall apart at home. Some PDAers only struggle in one setting. PDAers may not do as well with routine and seem to need more novelty than most autistic individuals. Individuals with PDA can do really well for short periods of time and then (seemingly) all of a sudden stop doing well (Jekyll and Hyde), which makes it look like their behavior is entirely volitional (it isn’t). Parents and teachers say, "He doesn't know he's a kid" or "She thinks she's one of the adults." PDAers have great difficulty seeing the social hierarchy. PDAers tend to be more socially savvy than most people with autism and can actually use manipulation pretty well (though I prefer strategy to manipulation, since all of their challenging behaviors are aimed at regaining a sense of autonomy). Their relatively good superficial social skills often make people wonder whether or not they are really on the autism spectrum (but in my experience they are). These individuals tend to have better eye contact and better social reciprocity than most with autism, and they can often appear to be socially typical.
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