Throwback: 5 Ways to Recognize Pathological Demand Avoidance at School | Ep. 179

This episode is a throwback to one of the most popular episodes in the history of this podcast, originally recorded as a live presentation I gave in 2022 at the Miami Sudbury Democratic School. I am releasing it again during September, a month I am dedicating to school and education content, because I keep hearing from teachers, therapists, and parents who are still looking for language to explain what they are seeing in the classroom.

In this presentation I walk through the nervous system mechanism underlying PDA, the two most common paths PDA children take through school systems, and five observable characteristics that often appear regardless of whether a child is more externalized or internalized, age, or a formal diagnosis.

Key Takeaways

Why Seventy Percent of PDA Children Cannot Access Any School: Two Paths | 00:03:49 The first path is a child who appears completely fine at school, does not qualify for an IEP or a 504, and whose teachers and administrators do not see what the parents are describing at home. But things are escalating at home, basic needs are being impacted, and the parents eventually pull the child from school feeling like no one believes them. The second path is a child whose high social communication skills lead professionals to call them high functioning, and when the behavioral expression of the disability appears, they are labeled as a defiant behavioral problem rather than a child with a nervous system disability. Both paths end in the same place: outside the school system.

The First Observable Characteristic: Equalizing Behavior | 00:13:26 Equalizing is what the body does when the nervous system has perceived a loss of autonomy and is trying to get back to a place of safety and equality. In a classroom it can look like reflexively touching something after being told not to, changing the rules of an activity, starting a worksheet in the middle, writing words backwards, walking away, putting a head down, or reducing meaningful speech. In a home it can look like targeting a sibling, knocking things over, or saying stop talking every time a parent speaks. What matters most is the adult response in that moment.

The Second and Third Characteristics: Masking and Undivided Attention | 00:18:08 Masking in PDA takes two forms: the learned social imitation most people understand, and what I call autonomic nervous system masking, where a child is experiencing full fight, flight or freeze internally while appearing calm externally. This i