Managing Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) in UK Schools

Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) is a profile of Autism Spectrum Disorder. PDA is characterised by extreme avoidance of everyday demands, driven by high anxiety and a need for control.

Demand avoidance is clearly problematic in the classroom but it's important to remember that the challenging behaviour is driven by anxiety and mental health. Autistic children with PDA are prone to extreme anxiety, a meltdown or panic attack if left unsupported.

What might feel like ordinary demands to neurotypical peers can trigger distress for the person experiencing demand avoidance. Education professionals, quite understandably, can sometimes become frustrated at this persistent and marked resistance from pupils in their classroom who avoid everyday demands. However, with the right support and understanding, we can create a positive environment in which pupils with pathological demand avoidance (PDA) can succeed.

This article aims to give you a better understanding of PDA and equip you with tools and strategies to manage challenging behaviours for good outcomes. We'll advocate for the use of Positive Behaviour Support and also introduce you to the Behaviour Help App which is an empowering tool to help teachers, support staff and parents collaborate on behaviour management.

Understanding Demand Avoidance

Demand avoidance is not about stubbornness or wilful defiance. It is, at its core, a response to anxiety. According to the National Autistic Society, people with a PDA profile experience high anxiety when faced with demands, whether those demands are big or small. The PDA Society emphasises that this avoidance is a way of coping with a perceived loss of control, not a conscious choice to “misbehave.”

Why Does Anxiety Trigger Demand Avoidance?

For someone with PDA, a demand — even something as seemingly harmless as “please pick up your pen” — can feel like a sudden intrusion on their autonomy. This triggers the body’s fight-or-flight panic response:

The heart rate increases.
Breathing becomes shallow.
A sense of panic sets in.

The person may feel cornered or trapped, and the quickest route to relief is to avoid the task altogether. This avoidance is an anxiety management strategy, even though it may appear to outsiders as refusal or disobedience.

How Might the Person Be Feeling?

Inside, the experience may sound like:

“If I start this, I won’t be able to stop.”
“This feels wrong, I can’t explain why.”
“I’m not in control, and that’s terrifying.”

These feelings are real and distressing. Recognising this helps teachers, support staff, and parents respond with empathy rather than frustration.

Direct vs Indirect or Implied Demands

It’s not just spoken instructions that can trigger avoidance. Many children with PDA react just as strongly to implied demands. These can include:

The expectation to follow a timetable without being told.
Classroom rules and routines that are unspoken but understood.
Social pressures, such as joining in group activities or making eye contact.

Even knowing that a task is expected — without it being mentioned — can be enough to cause anxiety and avoidance.

The Role of Fantasy Worlds

Some children manage their anxiety by retreating into a rich fantasy world. This imaginative space can offer comfort, sensory regulation and a sense of control, but it can also create challenges:

Peers may struggle to engage if the child’s play is overly rigid or only makes sense within their invented world.
Teachers may see daydreaming instead of recognising a self-regulation strategy.
The child may miss social cues or shared experiences, impacting friendships.

Balancing the benefits of imaginative coping with the need for social learning is an important part of support.

Tools and Strategies For Managing Pathological Demand Avoidance

In classrooms all over the United Kingdom, children with (or without) an autism diagnosis will be experiencing PDA. At times teachers might not notice but at others, challenging behaviours will become more obvious and cause disruption to the flow of learning.

We'll not introduce you to tools and strategies that can help during everyday life in the classroom to improve the child's well being and self esteem to reduce anxiety and ultimately the demand avoidance of everyday tasks.

Positive Behaviour Support

Positive Behaviour Support is a person-centred, evidence-based framework for understanding behaviour and supporting learners in a proactive and compassionate way. PBS helps staff identify the reasons behind behaviours of concern and implement strategies to improve quality of life while reducing incidents.

Every child is unique and how one person reacts to perceived threats to their personal autonomy, another may not. it's important, therefore, to adopt a flexible approach among school staff and adapt strategies to suit the individual.

However, research suggests that appropriate support for children with Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) will benefit from the following strategies:

Reducing Anxiety and Perceived Threat

Direct demands are often the most triggering for pupils with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). To reduce the anxiety associated with being asked to do something, it can help to reframe demands using indirect language. You may need to experiment and offer personalised support to find the right approach for each pupil.

Begin by using indirect requests. Instead of saying “Do this,” try “I wonder if you would like to…” or “How about we try…?”

These requests, framed as questions, give the individual a sense of choice and autonomy. They feel more like invitations than fixed requirements, reducing the perception of pressure.

Avoid Power Struggles

Engaging in a teacher–student power struggle in response to point blank refusal demand avoidance can quickly escalate into overwhelming anxiety and lead to emotional outbursts.

It is important to exercise caution and avoid getting into a standoff. Stepping back and allowing the pupil’s anxiety levels to settle can help restore calm. Once they are regulated, you can revisit the demand in a different way that feels less threatening.

Use Role Play

Role play can be a powerful tool for children with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), as it creates a safe, imaginative space where demands can be introduced indirectly. For example, if a child is reluctant to engage in a reading task, they might be more willing if it is framed as part of a detective game, where they are “finding clues” in a story. This method allows the pupil to take on a role that feels separate from themselves, reducing the perception of being directly instructed and instead inviting them to participate in a shared activity.

Incorporating fantasy elements — especially if the child already enjoys imaginative play — can help bridge the gap between avoidance and engagement. When they feel in control of their role, they are more likely to take part, and tasks that might usually cause anxiety can be completed without triggering the same defensive response.

Build Relationships and Trust

Above all, successful management of Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) in the classroom relies on strong, trusting relationships. A pupil who feels understood, valued, and respected is less likely to see demands as threats. Taking time to listen, acknowledge their feelings, and validate their perspective can make a significant difference. Small gestures, like remembering their interests or offering them responsibility in an area they enjoy, can build rapport and lay the groundwork for more successful cooperation.

Consistency across staff is also crucial. When all adults working with the child use similar strategies and language, the pupil is less likely to be confused or unsettled by mixed approaches. Collaboration between teachers, teaching assistants, parents, and support staff ensures the child receives the same messages and support both at school and at home.

Encourage Collaborative Problem Solving

Inviting the pupil to be part of finding solutions can also reduce anxiety and build autonomy. Asking questions such as, “What do you think might help us get this finished?” or “How can we make this work for you?” shows respect for their perspective and encourages them to take ownership of their learning. This sense of control can help transform a demand into a shared goal.

Visual Aids

Visual aids are a powerful preventative tool for supporting pupils with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), as they help reduce uncertainty and the anxiety that often triggers demand avoidance. Using clear, accessible visuals — such as pictures, symbols, or simple written prompts — can make expectations feel less like direct verbal demands and more like neutral information the pupil can process in their own time.

One effective approach is to use visual timetables. These lay out the sequence of the day’s activities in a way that the child can see and refer back to whenever they need reassurance. A visual timetable gives a sense of predictability, helping the pupil to mentally prepare for transitions and changes in routine when they attend school. This can significantly lower anxiety levels and, in turn, reduce the likelihood of avoidance behaviours.

Because the information is presented visually, the child is not being put on the spot in the same way they might be during verbal instruction. This indirect delivery of expectations preserves their sense of autonomy while still guiding them towards what needs to be done. Over time, the use of visual aids can help pupils with PDA feel more in control of their day and less resistant to participating in classroom activities.

Using the Behaviour Help App to For Consistent Support

The Behaviour Help App provides a consistent framework for supporting pupils with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) through its guided assess, manage, prevent approach. This structure helps educators, parents, and caregivers work together to better understand the child’s unique needs and respond effectively.

Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) often begins with demand avoidance, but if left unaddressed, it can escalate into more challenging behaviours such as shouting, physical aggression, withdrawal, or complete shutdown. The app’s process starts with the assess stage, identifying the specific antecedents — the triggers and environmental factors — that lead to these behaviours. This assessment is highly personalised, recognising that each pupil’s challenges, strengths, and triggers are different.

The manage stage focuses on establishing strategies that work for the individual. This might involve adapting communication styles, adjusting classroom routines, or introducing personalised de-escalation techniques. These strategies are documented within the app so that they can be accessed and implemented consistently by everyone involved.

Finally, the prevent stage is about embedding these strategies into daily practice to reduce the likelihood of challenging behaviours occurring in the first place. By using this three-stage approach, the Behaviour Help App becomes more than just a record-keeping tool — it serves as a living playbook for each child. Every teacher, teaching assistant, or caregiver can access the same personalised guidance, ensuring that support is consistent across the school and at home.

This collaborative, joined-up method means the child benefits from a stable, predictable environment in which their anxiety is reduced, their self-esteem is nurtured, and their opportunities for success are maximised.

Managing PDA and Ofsted's Expectations in the UK - The Behaviour Help App Can Help

Under Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework (EIF), schools are expected to create a calm, orderly, and safe environment for all pupils, while recognising and responding appropriately to behaviours linked to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Inspectors look for clear evidence that reasonable adjustments have been made for pupils with additional needs, and that behaviour policies are applied consistently yet flexibly when working with SEND learners.

For autistic children, including those with a PDA profile, this means staff must be able to demonstrate personalised approaches that reduce anxiety and promote engagement. A “one-size-fits-all” application of behaviour rules can unfairly disadvantage these pupils and risks criticism under both the Behaviour and Attitudes and Leadership and Management judgments.

Adopting a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) approach provides a strong foundation for meeting these expectations. PBS not only shows that your school actively promotes inclusion and meets its Equality Act 2010 duties, but also that it safeguards vulnerable learners by tailoring support to individual needs.

The Behaviour Help App strengthens this further by providing a clear, consistent way to record and evidence the support given. Through its assess, manage, prevent framework, the app captures detailed information about triggers, strategies, and preventative measures, ensuring there is a documented history of how each pupil has been supported. This evidence can be invaluable during inspections, demonstrating to Ofsted that staff are not only aware of the pupil’s needs but are actively implementing, reviewing, and refining personalised strategies over time.

By embedding PBS principles and using the Behaviour Help App to track and coordinate interventions, schools can confidently show inspectors that they meet statutory obligations, foster inclusion, and maintain a safe and supportive environment for all pupils — including those with PDA.

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Conclusion

Supporting pupils with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) requires understanding, flexibility, and a willingness to adapt established routines to meet individual needs. By adopting a Positive Behaviour Support approach and making use of tools like the Behaviour Help App, schools can reduce anxiety, improve engagement, and create an environment where every pupil has the opportunity to succeed.

The app’s assess, manage, prevent framework not only supports pupils day-to-day, but also provides a clear record of the strategies used, offering valuable evidence for Ofsted inspections and safeguarding reviews. It ensures that teachers, support staff, parents, and carers are working in unison, sharing insights and maintaining consistency across all environments.

We hope you have found this guide useful. If you would like help understanding how the Behaviour Help App could be implemented in your school, or if you wish to discuss strategies for managing PDA, please get in touch. Together, we can build supportive, inclusive classrooms that help all young people succeed.

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