PDA sociopathic condition related to aspergers syndrome

Post Reply New Topic

Welcome to the future, people.

Yes...it does seem like we're far too willing to drop the S-word these days


Not everyone, regardless of how egregrious their behavior is, can be legitimately defined as a "sociopath". The predominant values of our society inspire a wide range of BEHAVIORS which can be viewed as sociopathic. But the guy who abruptly cuts you off in traffic or fails to leave 15% tip is not necessarily a defacto PATHOLOGICAL sociopath.

Hi there,
I've been following your discussion with great interest. I run a national (and gradually becoming international) support group for parents of children with PDA and for professionals who are involved in the care of children with PDA. I can assure you firstly that poor parenting is not the issue here. Secondly, having helped to support many, many parents to get the right help and support for their children, it is really important to recognise that whatever we decide - if it is an autism spectrum disorder or not, the real issue is getting the right support for these children.
Contrary to what some have posted here, these children often have very prominent sensory issues. Their social difficulties are based around the fact that they don't seem to see where they fit into society and so whilst understanding rules and regulations they don't always believe they themselves should abide by them. This, as you can understand, gets them into all sorts of difficulties. Another thing that seems to be overlooked by people talking about PDA is that these children are often extremely enigmatic and 'fun' to other children contrary to the believe that they are all 'sociopaths'. Their greatest difficulty is their great anxiety in response to perceived or actual demands and avoiding those demands by whatever means they can is their greatest skill! They can be manipulative in their quest to do so. This has nothing to do with how they are parented. Most of these children will be in families who have never had any parenting issues with other children and their PDA child is a complete mystery to them. Professionals often diagnose these children as atypically autistic but agree they do not quite fit. Often parents on seeing the criteria for diagnosis, cannot believe how the description fits their child like a glove or "as though it were written specifically about my child".
If these children bear no relation to autistic children then an awful lot of paediatricians have been misled! There are many special schools in the UK who are recognising PDA in some of their more difficult to manage children who have already been labelled as autistic. Just as there are children with autistic traits there are likely to be children with PDA traits and sometimes the two conditions will overlap and co-exist. Science is not always black and white.
What seems to be the most important outcome of recognising PDA is that managing it requires a very flexible approach from teaching staff (possibly more likely to be easier to adopt if they have already been trained in ASD's) and high levels of support in schools and when those are in place these children do very well. If you treat these children as though they have a personality disorder and have some control over their behaviours then you write them off and do not give them support that they so desperately need.
My own child has PDA and went from failing at two mainstream schools to an autism integrated resource and is now doing superbly. He will most likely be going to an autistic secondary school who already have 2 or 3 children with PDA whom are doing very well there.
The value of diagnosing PDA is to enable them to receive the benefit of the specific help and management guidelines for PDA which seem to work.
I hope this adds to your discussion and gives you more to think about. These children deserve every bit as much help and support as those diagnosed as Asperger or Autism.
Margo
PDA Contact Group

"Children do well if they can" Quote from Ross Greene The Explosive Child

Couple of us weren't happy about the "sociopathic" label, yeah.

Um, also, paragraphs next time? Thanks.

Anyway. I don't know if PDA is a legitimate diagnosis, a sub-set or combination of some other diagnosis, or anything else. I haven't studied it. Some of those symptoms look neurological, others psychological, others environment-related. I really want some good research done and published on the topic before I'll accept it as a single phenomenon; and if I had a kid with those symptoms, I would probably, since it isn't a recognized diagnosis and hasn't got a lot of studies done, look at the case by itself and work on specific problems rather than treating it as a representative of a larger group.

Age old philosophical problem, when to consider a repeated set of actions a disorder and when not to? Clinical significance. When an action causes harm then it usually classifies as an disorder. This says nothing causes, genetic, social, psychological, whatever, merely that there is a set of actions that is considered harmful and needs to be classified to formulate clinical strategies to tackle it.

And on that basis, FOS should definately be in the DSM and ICD.

In July 2003, Archives of Disease in Childhood (the official journal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Healthand and also the official journal of the European Academy of Paediatrics) carried a paper on Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome by E Newson, K Le Maréchal, and C David.
The article Pathological demand avoidance syndrome: a necessary distinction within the pervasive developmental disorders can be accessed on the ADC Online website.

I'd post a link to the article but as a new user I can't! If you Google the title

Pathological demand avoidance syndrome: a necessary distinction within the pervasive developmental disorders

it will come up as the first hit.

The full article and additional supporting material are all available without subscription although registration (free) is required.

HTH

Considering you can have sensory processing disorder and not be autistic, and technically be autistic without having sensory issues, I don't find this significant.


I don't see how this is related to autism in anyway either.

Basically, I'm not seeing why this should be compared to autism still. I'm not saying this isn't a legitimate condition-- for that I do not know-- but I do not believe it should be clumped together or compared to autism spectrum disorders.

I wonder why on earth they put MORE likely to be female, when according to the percentage they're showing, only half are female. You'd think that would mean the other half are male... making them equally likely.

With autism it's more likely to be male. They put that there to signify that more females have PDA verses autism.

Of note, it says "passive social interaction when younger" or some such, and this would be referring to that specific way of interaction that's common amongst individuals with AS as children (there's a few ways the lack of social reciprocation manifests in ASDs).

Let me explain a little about the history of PDA which may help people realise why there is a fair amount of confusion over the 'autism spectrum' label.

When Elizabeth Newson first coined the term PDA, it was because she recognised many children with the same set of features. These children had all been referred to her because they were labelled as atypically autistic, they had reminded the professionals of autism but or Asperger's but didnt quite fit.
Importantly, methods used in schools etc didn't seem to work for these children so she felt atypical autism and PPD-NOS were unhelpful terms. Elizabeth Newson felt that it was therefore important to give them a separate label, so they could be managed better.

At the time, Dr Lorna Wing felt that many of the features of PDA could all be seen in autistic individuals and felt there didn't need to be a distinction and that this was all part of autism. Elizabeth wanted the distinction because she felt to treat a child with PDA as though he had Asperger's was not helpful. That is why the two boxes - a child with Asperger's is more likely to: etc and A child with PDA is more likely to: etc

Autism and Asperger's appear within the categories of Pervasive developmental disorders, as do Atypical autism and PDD - NOS (Pervasive developmental Disorder-Not otherwise specified), the whole category of Pervasive developmental disorders, at least in the UK, is now loosely referred to as 'autism spectrum disorders' and has become synonymous with them as an umbrella category. This has been referred to in the UK's National Autism Plan for children.

In this context prolonged debate about whether PDA is a syndrome within the family of PDD's or a subgroup of what has become an umbrella term of ASD becomes rather distracting. Instead we should be constantly focussed on the true purpose of diagnosis: to better understand and make sense of individuals and to use that understanding to help us formulate more effective forms of intervention and provision. Phil Christie from his article in GAP (Good Autism Practice) The distinctive clinical and educational needs of children with Pathological demand avoidance syndrome.

Margo

Thanks, it makes a bit more sense now.

Sooo... more like ADHD:ADHD(Inattentive)::Asperger's:PDA?

http://www.pdacontact.org.uk/frames/ind ... eria.shtml

Some better comparisons of children with AD/AS and PDA.

wow! this might be my partner Flakey!!

Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrom – Wow! This sounds like my father. I think. Maybe.

Where are the adults?

What does an adult PDA-sufferer look like?

Are adults likely to have become more subtle about things? I mean, the manipulative part would eventually outweigh the tantrum part, or else the manipulative stuff wouldn’t work.

I know my dad had my mother doing all the work while he had allergies and problems with his eyes and other excuses (despite his being, supposedly “brilliant” intellectually) throughout their marriage, that made absolutely everything her province to take care of.

But he didn’t have a flambouyant style. My mother thought of it as maddeningly passive-aggressive.

After she left, he lived alone, and mostly got friends and organizations to do things for him in his status as senior citizen. He explained to me a couple of times that if he were to get too close with a potential female companion she might want him to" vaccum her carpet, or carry heavy things” so he steered clear of women for those reasons.