Lack of passive early history is not a diagnostic barrier, PDA is a spectrum, an individual can have two ASD subtypes one of which can be PDA and all PDAers are individual. From what you say about the primary support services I agree it's a totally wrong move. Autistic children are not typical children and they behave certain ways for different reasons than other children, it's entirely to do with their cognitive processing, sensory, anxiety (which usually differs in cause to typical children's anxiety), auditory processing and other neurodiverse issues. I would ask for ASD specific support and send them information on PDA strategies and point out to them that all the indicators are that she has ASD-PDA and the wrong behavioural support could be harmful to her and cause more difficulties.

Hello, thank you everyone. Yes I have suggested PDA to her teacher and SENCO. They are unfamiliar but then, they have also never experienced a child that behaves like mine! I have supplied the resources from here to them and the Phil Christie book as well as "can I tell you about PDA"

I think my instincts are correct that the referral could be completely wrong and we need a diagnoses. She had a huge meltdown today because the dog took the carrot from her snowman. I said she would not be allowed TV because she was really aggressive and violent to me. It of course escalated and she was shoving me really hard into things and smashing things. I need to know wether I should be disciplining bad behaviour or comforting a child having panic attacks. She us such an anomaly, we know she is very different but can present as so normal with excellent, engaging communication skills so it is hard to get people to understand x

Hi and welcome to the forum. Personally I think it depends what the Primary Behaviour Services Offer, is this a service that comes into school or a school they attend? It would be good to find out more about what they could do. Our daughter was asked to attend our local pupil referral unit and although initially we felt concerned on talking to the Headteacher and her staff we realised that they could help us, but obviously much of this is dependent on who you have to work with.

I would definitely ask to have your daughters case reviewed again and seek further advice particularly as you suspect PDA as the strategies are significantly different.

With regards to disciplining behaviour it’s taken a while but we can usually tell now when our daughter’s behaviour is being ‘naughty/pushing boundaries’ and we use consequences, rather than when she’s in panic due to anxiety. Then we’d offer reassurance, diversion or wait it out and then when calm talk about how we could try to do things differently next time.

Do have a look at the webinars and resources section but I would be very happy to chat to you further if you wanted to PM me, via the messages tab at the of the page.