Ep. 33: How to Support PDAers
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What is Persistent Drive for Autonomy (PDA) and how does it differ from Pathological Demand Avoidance?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift.
We're an SLP couple from California with three boys and a passion for finding better ways to support autistic kids.
I'm Chris. You might know me as Speech Dude. I'm a neurodivergent high school SLP and the creator of the Dynamic Assessment of Social Emotional Learning and I specialize in crafting neurodiversity affirming IEPs through my online course.
And I'm Jessie, a sensory integration trained SLP, owner of a top-rated clinic in Los Angeles, and the creator of the Inside Out sensory communication programs for parents and therapists. Join us weekly to learn neurodiversity-affirming ways to support social-emotional development and regulation in autistic kids.
Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do
it.
Good evening, everyone. Jesse and I are here. We're going to have a great show. We're going to be covering all things related to PDA. We'll dive into that.
I thought you were going to say, welcome to Making the Shift.
Well, I was thinking that our intro and then following it up with that would be a little redundant.
But we do it
every time. But we do it every time. I thought about that, though, with our last episode. I was like, you know, I kind of want to switch it up a little bit.
Because you're a seeker and you don't like routine. You like exciting new things.
I always like new things. New restaurants, new places to vacation. And
new ways to open the show.
New bottles of wine.
Especially
that.
So tonight we are talking all about PDA. We are talking all about PDA, which is most people know, I think, as pathological demand avoidance. But the more neurodiversity affirming way to say or affirming way to say it is PDA.
So pervasive drive for autonomy, not persistent. Oh, you told me
persistent
the other
day.
Yeah. So let's just really briefly talk about that. It hasn't even really been a thing in the United States up until honestly the past two to three years. It really is a thing that is really a known thing out in the UK. But this topic tonight that you're I shouldn't say tonight, that you're listening to, that you've tuned into the live show with, is probably relatively new to you. Many years ago, so I've been working in the school system for, gosh, quite some time.
Like 800 years.
How did the term PDA evolve and why is “Persistent Drive for Autonomy” considered more affirming?
I'm getting ancient. I'm getting old. There is a manual that's a diagnostic criteria manual. It's called the DSM. I've been through a couple versions of those. We're currently on DSM-5. Anyway, the previous version, I want to say maybe it was the DSM-IV in 2015, 2016. It changed a little bit. And they had added some things and taken some things out in relation to autism. So one of the things that they did was they removed the term Asperger's syndrome. They restructured it for different levels. So, you know, level one. which essentially in the DSM-5 was related to those who had fewer supports, essentially Asperger's from the DSM-4 is what they were going about that. But in the DSM-4, there was autism as a diagnostic criteria, and there was something called PDDNOS, pervasive developmental disorder disorder,
not otherwise specified. So when we talk about PDA tonight, this is the structure around that. This is kind of where that came from. So I wanted to give you the back history. So that way you kind of have an idea of the, where this kind of originated from PDD NOS was saying, Hey, um, there's an individual that has some autistic characteristics, but don't quite fit that category of being, um, Autistic. So that's where the PDDNOS came from. And then, you know, fast forward to where we're at today. We have pathological demand avoidance. But as Jesse just said, that just doesn't sound right. Right. Does that sit well with you guys? I don't know. I was talking to Jesse about that. And it's like that just sounds so harsh.
Pathological demand avoidance.
I just the word path. I mean, they're
all negative
words, but pathological.
I know. I just don't like that. Yeah.
Yeah.
So thanks
for making the change.
Yeah, we're making the shift. So I didn't come up with that. I want to say her name's Emily Walling.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Persistent Drive for Autonomy (PDA) and how does it differ from Pathological Demand Avoidance?
0:08–2:42
2
How did the term PDA evolve and why is “Persistent Drive for Autonomy” considered more affirming?
2:42–4:59
3
What is the underlying stress response that drives PDA‑related avoidance behaviors?
4:59–8:31
4
How can parents and educators identify PDA traits in children?
8:31–12:55
5
What are the key “do’s and don’ts” when supporting a child with PDA?
12:55–16:58
6
How can we use declarative language instead of commands to reduce demand?
16:58–20:09
7
What academic accommodations help PDA‑ers succeed in the classroom?
20:09–23:38
8
What resources and next steps are recommended for families of PDA‑ers?
23:38–26:25
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)