Communication
Found 16 listings
The Amazing Autistic Brain Cards
150 Cards with Strengths and Challenges for Positive Autism Discussions.
This deck of cards is a resource to help professionals, parents and anyone working with autistic young people to have discussions about an Autism diagnosis in a personalised, positive and meaningful way.
The beautifully designed cards each show a strength - such as being inquisitive or honest - or a challenge - such as sensory difficulties or understanding emotions. The pack also includes reusable blank cards which can be personalised.
The accompanying booklet provides approaches and strategies developed by Dr Dura-Vila in her clinical practice. She also shares her personal (and occasionally humorous) experiences, including tips for discussing an autism diagnosis. These accounts within inspire readers to give their best to any young person when sharing an autism diagnosis, and in the conversations that follow.
Authors: Glòria Durà-Vilà (Author), Rebecca Tatternorth (Illustrator)
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Find on publisher's website
Declarative Language Handbook
Declarative Language Handbook: Using a Thoughtful Language Style to Help Kids with Social Learning Challenges Feel Competent, Connected, and Understood.
This book was written to teach you how making small shifts in your language and speaking style will produce important results. You will stop telling kids what to do and instead thoughtfully give them information to help them make important discoveries in the moment. These moments build resilience, flexibility, and positive relationships over time.
You might be a therapist or a teacher, or you might be a parent, grandparent, or babysitter. Your child might have a diagnosis such as autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD or Non-Verbal Learning Disability. But they might not. No matter your child’s learning style, this book was written to help you feel equipped to make a difference, simply by being mindful of your own communication and speaking style.
Author & Publisher: Linda K. Murphy
Find on Amazon
Keys to care
A single page information sheet for supporting and helping a PDA person. Ideal for those working with individuals whose care-needs have been identified as relating to demand avoidance. Useful as a grab-sheet for members of staff - a regular reminder of what can help.
Also helpful for family members or individuals who are trying to explain the essence of a PDA profile to those who care for them.
Published by: PDA Society
Download this PDF
A third party German translation of this resource is also available here.
PDA and Speech & Language Therapy
In this webinar, Libby Hill - Speech & Language Therapist (SALT) from Smalltalk, looks at the difficulties that PDA individuals may experience with speech and language; even though difficulties in this area may not be obvious at first, and how this can affect behaviour? Libby also discusses the benefits of a full speech and language assessment and how regular therapy from a SALT can help individuals with PDA.
An extended question and answer session follows.
Recorded in August 2017
Please note: this webinar was recorded in 2017, it may therefore contain some outdated language and terminology.
Watch on YouTube
"If we assume that PDA has a basis in anxiety, one of the key factors behind the anxiety could well be that they do not fully understand the abstract language used around them or 'get' the hidden social messages from adults or peers. Some may even have disordered language. However, they do not want others to be aware they are struggling, they want to control the interaction or situation to keep to familiar, understandable territory. Some may use diversion tactics to avoid or to mask. This is in itself very stressful so increases the anxiety".
Libby Hill 2017
Child Profiles
Child profiles or ‘one-page profiles’ have been developed as a useful tool particularly for SENCos to use in schools in order to share information about the needs and capabilities of a range of pupils with additional needs across the staff. This can help staff to ensure their practice is in line with consistent approaches for the child in a setting. Children interact with numerous adults during the course of a day and there needs to be a shared understanding across the staff.
Child profiles are best when based on person-centred planning approaches. This is a way of capturing a child holistically. How can we begin to understand what helps a child if we only ever know what things they can’t do? So a child profile will cover what we appreciate about the child, what they can do, what they find difficult, what works, what doesn’t work, how we can help and what outcomes we are working for. These profiles are best when the child, the parent and the school (this could be more than one member of staff) have all contributed ideas so we are all working together to ensure vital information can be shared about effective strategies.
Download editable child [...]
Demand-Anxiety Cycle: resource template
A tool to help young people, parents & professionals understand demand avoidance and talk together.
Tick boxes that apply, write on it, or edit the document….
Whatever works for you.
Download editable template
A third party German translation of this document (by a German parent of a PDA child) is also available here.
Please note: the PDA Society is not able to verify the accuracy of translations listed on our website.
What PDA means to me – editable resource
This resource was created to help a child going from being home-schooled into a special school, but could be used in many other situations. It lists traits like high anxiety, impulsivity and demand avoidance that made life difficult, with specific examples and thoughts on what helps. It also has space for including information about strengths, interests and so on.
Created as a template to be adapted in whatever way you choose.
Completed example (pdf)
Editable version (docx)
Collaborative Approaches to Learning for Pupils with PDA
Strategies for Education Professionals
This book distils expert reccommendations on implementing collaborative approaches to learning for supporting pupils with Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome (PDA) at school. Explaining why this approach is so beneficial, it presents key information and resources to help education professionals best support pupils with PDA, and also school staff.
Authors: Ruth Fidler and Phil Christie
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Find on publisher's website
Me and My PDA
Me and My PDA: A Guide to Pathological Demand Avoidance for Young People
This beautifully illustrated guide helps young people with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) to understand their diagnosis, develop self-awareness and implement their own personalised problem-solving strategies. Written in consultation with young people with PDA and their families, this book recognises the importance of handing control back to the young person, and that there is no one-size-fits-all PDA profile. Readers are encouraged to engage throughout with interactive writing, doodling and checklist exercises to explore their own particular characteristics, strengths and challenges. Me and My PDA is sensitively tailored to the needs and experiences of young people (aged 10+) with PDA. The guide is designed to grow with the reader, and can be used for many years as the young person develops and changes - making it invaluable to PDA-diagnosed individuals and their families.
Authors: Glòria Durà-Vilà and Tamar Levi
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Find on publisher's website
Can I tell you about Pathological Demand Avoidance syndrome?
Can I tell you about Pathological Demand Avoidance syndrome?: A guide for friends, family and professionals
Meet Issy – an 11-year-old girl with pathological demand avoidance syndrome (PDA), a condition on the autism spectrum. Issy invites readers to learn about PDA from her perspective, helping them to understand how simple, everyday demands can cause her great anxiety and stress. Issy tells readers about all the ways she can be helped and supported by those around her.
This illustrated book is for readers aged 7 and upwards, and will be an excellent way to increase understanding about PDA in the classroom or at home. It also includes practical tips and recommended resources for parents and professionals.
Authors: Ruth Fidler and Phil Christie
Illustrated by: Jonathon Powell
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Find on publisher's website
PDA by PDAers
PDA by PDAers: From Anxiety to Avoidance and Masking to Meltdowns
This book is a collection of genuine insights and experiences from people living with PDA, adapted from their interactions on a popular online support group. It includes frank discussions of topics relevant to PDA, including work, relationships and managing meltdowns, making it a vital resource for both individuals and professionals.
Author: Sally Cat
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Find on publisher's website
Its a PanDA thing
“It’s a PanDA thing” is the third in a series of short picture stories aimed at supporting those first conversations between parents, carers and their children about an Autism, Aspergers or PDA related diagnosis.
Inspired by her own journey with her now 8 yr old boy Leo and his brother Ben, the books do not aim to guide or explain symptoms or what they mean - just to very simply recognise and accept what it might feel like to those on the spectrum and those close to them - especially siblings and loved ones.
Beautifully illustrated with the incredible artwork of Zeke Clough you will enjoy the gentle rhyming lilt of Rachel’s prose and also the easy perspective she provides on her boys.
With parents and carer notes provided by the PDA society.
To read the early part of Leo's journey see: The Thing: a young boy's journey with Asperger Syndrome.
Author: Rachel Jackson
Find on SEN books
The Explosive Child
A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children [Sixth Edition]
A groundbreaking approach to understanding and parenting children who frequently exhibit severe fits of temper and other intractable behaviours, from a distinguished clinician and pioneer in this field.
What’s an explosive child? A child who responds to routine problems with extreme frustration—crying, screaming, swearing, kicking, hitting, biting, spitting, destroying property, and worse. A child whose frequent, severe outbursts leave his or her parents feeling frustrated, scared, worried, and desperate for help. Most of these parents have tried everything-reasoning, explaining, punishing, sticker charts, therapy, medication—but to no avail. They can’t figure out why their child acts the way he or she does; they wonder why the strategies that work for other kids don’t work for theirs; and they don’t know what to do instead.
Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren’t attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren’t passive, permissive pushovers. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they [...]
Lost at School
Lost at School: Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them
From the renowned authority on education and parenting, "an in-depth approach to aid parents and teachers to work together with behaviorally challenging students" (Publishers Weekly)--now revised and updated.
School discipline is broken. Too often, the kids who need our help the most are viewed as disrespectful, out of control, and beyond help, and are often the recipients of our most ineffective, most punitive interventions. These students--and their parents, teachers, and administrators--are frustrated and desperate for answers.
Dr. Ross W. Greene, author of the acclaimed book The Explosive Child, offers educators and parents a different framework for understanding challenging behavior. Dr. Greene's Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) approach helps adults focus on the true factors contributing to challenging classroom behaviors, empowering educators to address these factors and create helping relationships with their most at-risk kids.
This revised and updated edition of Lost at School contains the latest refinements to Dr. Greene's CPS model, including enhanced methods for solving problems collaboratively, improving communication, and building relationships with kids.
Dr. Greene's lively, compelling narrative includes:
- Tools to identify the problems and lagging skills causing challenging behavior
- Explicit [...]
Assessing speech & language needs
10 tips for assessing speech & language needs in children with PDA
by Libby Hill, Speech and Language Therapist
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is a profile on the autism spectrum. As its name suggests, people with a PDA profile avoid demands to an extreme extent. Not in the way that all of us sometimes avoid demands, but in a way that is underpinned by huge anxiety, drives a need to be in total control and makes ordinary everyday things extremely difficult. These ordinary everyday things include appointments with speech and language therapists, of course!
I’ve assessed over 100 children with a PDA profile, and not one of them to date has had typical language and social communication (likewise adults with PDA, or PDAers as many preferred to be called, report exactly the same issues).
This isn’t surprising, of course, given that PDA is a profile of ASD. But with PDA the speech and language difficulties often present differently. Many children with PDA are extremely articulate, and many of their parents wonder how an SLT could possibly be helpful for them. By building an accurate picture of strengths, as well as understanding where some underlying difficulties arise from, we can help all those living [...]
Behavioural Strategies: advice sheet
The information sheet from Autism West Midlands provides some behavioural strategies to support individuals. It starts by outlining the key characteristics before looking at issues, including allowing the option of saying no and sharing responsibilities. It includes lots of examples of ways to change your language to minimise the anxiety created by demands.
Published by: Autism West Midlands
View PDF