PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) Autism Questionnaire

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I'd really appreciate it if you would complete the PDA traits questionnaire. Pathological Demand Avoidance is a little known and little understood form of autism. PDA has few recognised traits and many of these seem to be wrong(!) I have put this list together after collaborating with members of an Adult PDA Facebook group to create a large list of possible traits, which were put into an initial, in-group, Google form. The highest scorers and very unusual traits plus traits that are currently believed to be PDA ones have been put into this revised list. We now want non-PDA autistic people and neurotypicals (as well as PDAers) to answer the questions so we can see if any traits stand out as PDA-only ones. Your input would be very helpful. Thanks in advance. http://goo.gl/forms/kIngGhZstiyPxso83

It's a demand.

LOL it's phrased carefully as a request, does this come across as a demand to you? There is a definite issue that many PDAers may find completing a questionnaire an impassable demand, but some PDAers at least have participated and their (infact, our) data is IMO useful.

> Pathological Demand Avoidance is a little known and little understood form of autism

Can you tell us what it is?

Darmok: I'm kind of reluctant to say too much about what I believe PDA is, as I don't want to influence responses to the questionnaire. It is mainly (though still not very) recognised in the UK. This is how the UK's National Autistic Society describes it: "Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is now considered to be part of the autism spectrum. Individuals with PDA share difficulties with others on the autism spectrum in social aspects of interaction, communication and imagination. However, the central difficulty for people with PDA is the way they are driven to avoid demands and expectations. This is because they have an anxiety based need to be in control."

friedmacguffins: I'm sorry if this questionnaire has made you feel uncomfortable. Is the gender choice section at the beginning stressful? Might PDA be a family condition? From my experience, PDAers are incredibly fabulous people Another issue I'm aware of is that some ausitic respondants might have PDA, but not be aware of it and, in completing the questionnaire, select, 'I am autistic, but not PDA'. I'm not trying to label you or anyone though!

I took it. Interesting survery. ^^

I filled it out even though I don't think I have PDA. I see it as ODD and an anxiety disorder since it seems like people with it get anxiety when told what to do or when demands are put on them and the fact they don't seem to like authority. I don't experience that. Like if my manager tells me what he wants me to do, I don't panic because he had told me what to do. But I get annoyed when others tell me what to do and I don't do it and I don't like people contradicting what our manager told me but only because they are trying to tell me to do something the boss never told me to do so I just tell them "Go talk to the manager if they have a problem." Usually I am the one that ends up calling him to tell him about the problem. While I could relate to some of the symptoms, what makes me think I don't have PDA is the whole condition is about not liking demands placed on someone and the fact I read a blog by a lady with PDA and she was always getting into fights and suspended from school. I never had that happen ever. I was only into fights when I was being bullied and I was only suspended three times but it was not due to demands and this woman seemed to have it happen to her all the time.

League_Girl: thank you for sharing your perspective on this. Some, but by no means all, of the adults in the Facebook PDA group I am a member of – myself not included – were suspended from school and got into fights. Many of us do not have aggressive outbursts. As they say, if you meet one autistic person, you have met one autistic person.

May I come in here to outline my understanding of survey protocol and some related matters generally:

1) Surveys are generally not encouraged on WP unless posted by members in good standing who have some mileage on the forum as contributor-participants. Otherwise the convention seems to be that permission needs to be sought from the website owner here (which is Alex).

2) Material posted on WP is copyright protected.
http://wrongplanet.net/terms-of-use/

3) Wrong Planet is primarily a peer support group for those on the Autistic Spectrum and other neurodifferences, secondarily for their families, friends, supporters and any other parties who wish to engage in the same spirit.

4) People who join WP solely to recruit subjects for personal projects (eg completing a term paper at school). This is not an automatic right, though it is often seen as an assumed one.

5) When posters of surveys ask you to click on an email link, and post replies, bear in mind that the link may be contaminated with malware. Any that ask you to respond by private email could be phishing scams or recruiting addresses for sale to commercial enterprises and are best ignored for safety reasons.

BP, Alex, I'm sorry if I have breached protocol in posting this. I am not a new member of WP, but I haven't posted here for over a year. I didn't mean to break forum rules. This survey is written by myself, I am dxed with high functioning autism, in collaboration with other autistic adults. I strongly believe that this survey is ethical and not against WP's ethos. In detail:

1) Surveys are generally not encouraged on WP unless posted by members in good standing who have some mileage on the forum as contributor-participants. Otherwise the convention seems to be that permission needs to be sought from the website owner here (which is Alex).
I believe this is a genuine, autism-positive survey. You state that surveys are not encouraged, but to not state that they are banned.

2) Material posted on WP is copyright protected.
This could be an issue. If Alex refuses copyright-free permission, I will have to remove this survey as I wish it to have maximum impact in furthering global autistic understanding and this would negatively impact this. I hope we can work together for greater good. I am not seeking any personal; gain from this.

3) Wrong Planet is primarily a peer support group for those on the Autistic Spectrum and other neurodifferences, secondarily for their families, friends, supporters and any other parties who wish to engage in the same spirit.
As stated, I am dxed with high functioning autism. My PDA is not dxed.

4) People who join WP solely to recruit subjects for personal projects (eg completing a term paper at school). This is not an automatic right, though it is often seen as an assumed one.
I have been a member of WP for several years, although this has been my first post for a while.

5) When posters of surveys ask you to click on an email link, and post replies, bear in mind that the link may be contaminated with malware. Any that ask you to respond by private email could be phishing scams or recruiting addresses for sale to commercial enterprises and are best ignored for safety reasons.
This is a genuine Google form created for the genuine reason of wanting to increase understanding of autism. PDA appears to be an hfa only condition and I consider this survey highly relevant to this group.

How can Alex be directly queried about this? I am confident that this is a worthy, nonmalign survey of benefit to this group and the global high functioning autistic community as a whole.

OP, I realise that people are unaware of the conventions and guidelines! That's why I posted the information. I know you opened the thread in good faith.

It's easy to contact Alex, he is a member too and you can PM him, though whether he replies is up to him of course.

I've filled this in. Very interesting.

I put myself in the 'I don't know' category at the start. I'm not diagnosed autistic (though I strongly believe that I am autistic), never mind getting onto the topic of PDA. However, whilst I entered this survey thinking 'even if I am autistic, PDA doesn't describe me', I've ended the survey thinking that I recognised the questions referring to PDA and actually it does quite strongly describe me. So, I hope that's useful and not something that messes up the results!

Also slightly struggled with the phrasing of some questions, such as this:

I always want to be right. *
Not at all - Majorly so

Does 'not at all' mean that I don't like being right, or don't ALWAYS want to be right? I took it to be the second, as that seems the most logical, but wasn't 100% sure.

Does it mean "you avoid pathological demands"?


Or does it mean that "you pathologically avoid normal demands"?

It means you pathologically avoid normal demands.