Pathological Demand Avoidance

Question

Anyone here with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of PDA or have a child diagnosed with PDA? My 2.5 year old is showing signs of PDA but has not been officially diagnosed. At our first consult with the paediatrician, he only mentioned demand avoidance and said that it is not a diagnosis as of yet. We have a clinical psychologist appointment scheduled sometime this year but we’re thinking of holding back on the diagnosis since the label will definitely come with a lot of limitations. To add context, our child is highly verbal for her age and does not show any apparent autistic traits other than the demand avoidance and showing no interest in socialising with her peers in pre-nursery. Im posting tbjs to find out from others if there is any early intervention program targeted specifically for the PDA profile? It’s so uncommon that my online search yields nothing specific to PDA locally and PDA kids need an atypical therapy approach as the therapy itself maybe perceived as a demand by their nervous system. If anybody has any experience in relation to this, please get in touch. Any advice at all will be helpful for a mum spiralling into depression

Vô danh · Answer

We just came back from CDC at KKH for assessment as I noticed same traits of PDA and avoiding social interactions even when friendship have been established. There were also a lot of regulation issues but at the age of 2 ish to three it may be typical so I held back for a year. I didn't notice autism traits even as a teacher myself, but during the assessment going through the checklist some traits were highlighted. So I'm trying to digest that it might be possible though I'm more worried about being able to support adequately through the years instead of getting a diagnosis(though that helps narrow therapy) We decided to go through subsided route which was to raise the issue at polyclinic and wait for referral to child Dev clinic at KKH. That could be an option or Nuh or any private clinics might be Ur thing too.