The PDA Paradox: The Highs and Lows of My Life on a Little-Known Part of the Autism Spectrum

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We are a year clear of CAHMS now and will consistent support and learning together my son and I are moving forwards.

I have a few blog posts lined for the next coming months; such as further updates to the list the of published articles, in particular I have been informed to expect my article Pathological Demand Avoidance: Is it time to move beyond the pathological need to not to develop more inclusive pedagogical practices?It ended with him becoming a school refuser and, at that point, I completely stopped any attempts to get him into school and ignored any demand from the school, etc. Unfortunately, the NHS inpatient services and Camhs do not have this understanding, which is why I was adamant that my child could not go to a standard NHS unit and have standard treatment! This is no different to entire autistic population and autistic persons benefit being in charge of their lives (Woods 2018a). years on and working through the trauma caused as a family as there is no support in this area for traumatised autistic young people with ARFID.

PDAers need to do things their own way, and find many everyday things demanding, including things that they “should” or “want to” do. They haven’t let me leave those terms in the burial ground of my former way of speaking, but rather have been dragging them with me into this new, post-PDA-realization phase of life. When you are PDA yourself, and you have a PDA child, the fact that you both have an overwhelming need for control, can make life very difficult at times. These social strategies point to another characteristic that sets PDA kids apart from many of their non-PDA autistic peers, Thompson says.And when I then second guess my position later, I remind myself that when Cooper is old enough to fully grasp his different brain wiring, which I have been explaining to him without any labels at all, I will simply ask him his preference. Not only was the subject compelling for me, but the post was titled “The Violent Meltdown is a Misnomer and a Fallacy,” and in it Thompson noted that the boy’s “mother made the most astonishing statement: she had experience of violent and abusive people in her past, but explained that her son was NOT violent, including the time he broke her arm.