Commentary: Conceptualising demand avoidance
In 2017, Dr O'Nions and colleagues published a paper entitled
'Dimensions of difficulty in children reported to have an autism spectrum diagnosis and features of extreme/‘pathological’ demand avoidance' (available here)
The following year, Malik and Baird, published a commentary on this paper, entitled
Commentary: PDA ‐ what's in a name? Dimensions of difficulty in children reported to have an ASD and features of extreme/pathological demand avoidance: a commentary on O'Nions et al. (2017) In short, the paper discusses the importance of looking beyond the 'demand avoidance' to identify what is causing it, and suggests that using the label of 'PDA' may be detrimental. View the commentary.
A response to this commentary was published in the same journal by O'Nions and Noens entitled
Commentary: Conceptualising demand avoidance in an ASD context – a response to Osman Malik & Gillian Baird (2018)
The response continues the exploration of causation, and acknowledges the importance of exploring, in a clinical setting, the mechanisms which have caused behaviour to become habituated, the context of behaviours, specific cues, and factors which maintain them. However, they suggest that using co-morbidities, such as ODD, to describe these difficulties is likely to have negative consequences, leading to inappropriate reinforcement-based approaches. View the response.