pathological demand avoidance diagnosis fake

The trouble with an ODD diagnosis when PDA would be a better fit for a child is that there is a huge difference in the strategies which are proven successful for PDA versus ODD. Because Pathological Demand Avoidance is not yet recognised everywhere, I think some children are given a diagnosis of ODD alongside a diagnosis of autism. It would be unlikely I feel (though maybe not impossible), to have a child diagnosed with PDA and ODD. With thanks to the PDA Society for creating this slide and allowing me to shareĪ child (or adult) can be given an ODD diagnosis without an autism diagnosis however every child/adult diagnosed with PDA is autistic.

There are a number of other conditions shown in the green outer circle that are also often diagnosed alongside autism but can be stand-alone diagnoses. This diagram below, created by the PDA Society, shows that PDA falls within the blue circle of autism spectrum profiles, whereas ODD does not. Oppositional Defiant Disorder is not an Autism Spectrum Condition. Pathological Demand Avoidance is an Autism Spectrum Condition. The difference we see in our younger daughter is the extreme distress which it causes her, and the long-lasting knock-on effects if we choose to force the issue.

Of course many children have these kinds of worries, but not all children are autistic. Her worries about going to new places or her fear of being sick in the car prevent us from getting her out as much as we would like. In fact, over time we have learned that some of her refusals are sensory led, but others are anxiety driven. She didn't get irrationally distressed when we walked a different way to nursery just to annoy us her fear of not being in control and not knowing what was happening was the cause of that. She didn't refuse to wear socks just because she wanted to be awkward, it was a sensory issue. When she was younger, there may not have seemed to be an obvious reason for her refusal to do the most basic of tasks, but we soon realised that there was usually an underlying cause. Oppositional our girl may have been, but she definitely wasn't defiant. It wouldn't have been right, but it would have been an obvious choice. Given that the word oppositional was used when she was first assessed, our daughter was perhaps lucky to escape the suggestion of Oppositional Defiant Disorder as a diagnosis.

Pathological demand avoidance diagnosis fake