Pathological Demand Avoidance: Understanding the whole picture

Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is, in the mainstream view, currently (2025), seen as a profile of autism that centres on an instinctive, often extreme resistance to everyday demands. First identified and described by Professor Elizabeth Newson in the 1980s, PDA is rooted in her work with children whose behaviours differed distinctively from the broader autistic population of that era. Through careful observation and clinical research, Newson outlined a unique set of characteristics that continue to define the PDA profile today.

The origins of PDA

Elizabeth Newson’s pioneering research recognised a subgroup of children who weren't simply displaying "bad behaviour" or typical autistic traits. Instead, these individuals demonstrated a persistent pattern of resisting ordinary, everyday demands in creative and often complex ways. The foundation laid by Newson and her team established how PDA is not a simple case of defiance or refusal but a distinct profile with its own set of recognizable features.

The original characteristics as outlined by Newson include:

• Resisting and avoiding the ordinary demands of life

• Using social strategies as part of the avoidance

• Appearing sociable on the surface

• Experiencing excessive mood swings and impulsivity

• Displaying obsessive behavior, frequently centered on people

• Comfort with role play and pretending

• Language delay, often with notable catch-up

• Neurological differences, including challenges with coordination and balance

Key characteristics of PDA

People with PDA, often referred to as PDAers, show a complex and nuanced pattern of behaviours driven by an overwhelming need for autonomy and control. These key traits extend beyond simple demand avoidance:

• Elaborate excuses: They often provide intricate, detailed excuses for why they can’t fulfil even basic requests.

• Sabotaging activities: Ironically, PDAers may sometimes sabotage activities they actually want to do if those activities feel like a demand.

• Extreme aggression episodes: In situations where they feel control slipping away, PDAers can experience intense, sometimes explosive, aggression.

• Poor response to traditional parenting: Typical behaviour management techniques, like rewards or consequences, are often ineffective, and may even escalate avoidance or distress.

• Heightened need for autonomy and fairness: A powerful drive for fairness and personal choice underpins many interactions.

Social strategies for demand avoidance

Unlike more straightforward defiance, PDAers often use skilful social tactics to sidestep demands. Hence, their ASD diagnosis can often take a very long time, and at times, they may not even receive it. These strategies help reduce anxiety and avoid overwhelming situations:

• Giving excuses: Constructing logical or imaginative reasons they can’t comply.

• Changing the subject: Steering conversations away from requests.

• Pretending not to hear: Ignoring the demand altogether, often convincingly.

• Distracting others: Drawing attention away from the demand, sometimes with humour or misdirection.

• Procrastinating: Pushing tasks off, sometimes indefinitely.

• Making noise: Using sudden noise or other sensory disruptions to drown out the demand.

• Using humor: Lightening the mood or deflecting demands with jokes or playful acts.

Pretending, role play, and sociability

Another striking aspect of PDA is the interplay between avoidance, sociability, and imagination. Many PDAers are not only comfortable with, but excel in, role play and pretending. This might manifest as:

• Taking on the persona of a favourite animal or character (e.g., acting like a cat or superhero)

• Adopting roles such as pretending to host a TV cooking show during dinner preparation

• Using role play as a buffer, making demands feel less direct

Socially, individuals with PDA can appear especially friendly, funny, and charming. They often enjoy the company of others, sometimes seeming more socially adept than other autistic profiles. However, underneath this sociable exterior, their interactions are often motivated by a drive to maintain control and manage their emotional landscape.

Intense emotional experiences

PDAers tend to feel emotions very deeply and show:

• Rapid, unpredictable mood shifts, changing as quickly as flipping a switch

• Impulsivity in both action and emotional expression

• Extreme swings between emotional states, with little time for gradual change

These emotional patterns can be challenging both for PDAers and those around them, as responses to stress or perceived demands can be fast and intense.

Focused interests, especially in people

A defining feature of PDA is an obsessive interest that is frequently focused on people rather than things. This might include:

• Strong preoccupation with specific individuals, either real or fictional (such as favourite characters)

• An intense wish to be around people they like or admire

• Spending much time thinking or talking about one person in particular

• Feelings of anxiety, jealousy, or distress when that person interacts with others

• A need to know everything about what someone is doing or thinking

• swings between love and hate, displaying intense, polarised feelings for those close to them

Distinguishing PDA from other conditions

Understanding PDA means distinguishing it from other conditions with superficially similar behaviours, like Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), as well as responses to learning difficulties, mental health, and typical developmental stages.

PDA vs. ODD:
ODD-driven avoidance is usually about opposition or conflict with authority. Individuals with ODD may improve with routines, boundaries, and reward-based strategies. In contrast, PDAers typically do not respond to these approaches, as their responses are rooted in a deep need for autonomy and anxiety about demands. ODD also often presents in one setting rather than with everyone everywhere.

PDA vs. ADHD:
People with ADHD may ignore or resist requests because they struggle with planning, organising, or task initiation, core components of executive function. Their "refusal" is rarely a strategic or anxiety-driven avoidance, but rather a symptom of underlying cognitive challenges and impulsivity.

Learning difficulties: When tasks feel impossible, confusing, or overwhelming, especially without proper support, avoidance can be a coping strategy.

Mental or physical health conditions: Demand avoidance spikes with anxiety, low mood, depression, or chronic health problems. For those facing depression, even small tasks may seem insurmountable.

Typical development: It’s natural for toddlers to resist instructions as they assert independence, and for teenagers to rebel or withdraw under pressure. Usually, these phases are temporary, though still challenging.

Understanding the underlying causes

Demand avoidance, whether in PDA or elsewhere, is almost never “just bad behaviour.” It is essential to understand what’s happening beneath the surface:

• Anxiety: Many PDA behaviours are rooted in overwhelming anxiety, especially when demands feel threatening to autonomy.

• Trauma: Protective avoidance may be a response to previous distress or harm linked to demands.

• Burnout and sensory overwhelm: Overstimulation or chronic stress can lead to increased avoidance.

• Executive functioning difficulties: Trouble organising, planning, or initiating can lead to behaviours that appear to be avoidance.

• Feeling unsafe or unsupported: When environments are not accommodating, avoidance increases.

• Fear of failure: Sometimes, the avoidance protects against perceived threats of failure.

Why recognising PDA matters

Recognising and understanding PDA is crucial for providing effective support. Approaching PDA behaviours with standard, consequence-driven strategies used in ODD or other behavioural contexts can unintentionally escalate distress for PDAers. Instead, strategies that reduce direct demands, focus on collaboration, and offer choices can make a significant difference.

Supporting individuals with PDA means seeing beyond the outward resistance and understanding the complex interplay of anxiety, autonomy, social strategy, and emotional response. With compassion and the right approaches, we can help PDAers navigate the world on their terms, harnessing their creativity, sociability, and unique perspectives to build richer lives and stronger relationships.

The information provided is based on pdasociety.org.uk as of December 2025.