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PDA & high school learning?


anabelneri
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Hey there! I was around the forum years ago, and I’m excited to be back. 
 

I have an 8th grader who we’re pretty sure has PDA. We’re stateside, so it’s not an official diagnosis, but it’s the only thing in our years of searching that fits my kid. 
 

So, I know the recommended thing for kiddos with PDA is to unschool them, but that’s hard. I’ve been trying to think outside the box, like maybe use talkbox.mom for foreign language because I’d be more in charge of using it with them. Or gameschooling, with “sweetening the deal” a la Brave Learner. 
 

Does anyone else have ideas for undemanding ways to get an education in a PDAer’s general direction?

Thanks!

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I just popped in and noticed that no one has responded yet. You might try posting again on the learning challenges section of the boards, instead of the "special needs" subforum. I think sometimes messages get overlooked here.

Also, PDA isn't diagnosed here in the United States, as I'm guessing that you are aware. So there may not be many people who think they have ideas to contribute. Do you have another diagnosis in hand -- autism, perhaps?

For my most challenging kid, who is challenging enough to have an ODD diagnosis (on top of an alphabet soup of other things, including ASD), ADHD, and anxiety), our solution was sending him to school, so that there would be a team of other people helping, instead of just me. And things have improved significantly over the past two years, as we've worked with a psychiatric nurse practitioner on medication management. I'm not sure those are the kind of answers that you are seeking, though, so I hope others chime in.

Edited by Storygirl
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I didn’t answer before because honestly, I never found a good answer for my ASD kid who seems to fit the criteria for PDA (I thought PDA sounded like her years before we ever even considered ASD otherwise). Dual enrollment starting with just one one class at a time eventually became the unsticking point. It wasn’t possible for me to direct her education by about halfway through 9th grade. It had to be her wanting it before it happened. I wish I had better ideas. 
 

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https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/707359-pathological-demand-avoidance/

I agree it's not getting you help to focus on calling it PDA because it's the ASD diagnosis (which is probably the bigger picture) that will open funding and therapy doors. 

I went to a Jessica Minahan workshop and continue to recommend her as someone who GETS really hard kids. (See her books and website with resources page.) You have to remember that what you're looking at is a social thinking question (what do they understand, what are they aware of, how self aware are they). So in the US if you take on a behavioral label for your kid (say ODD), you're accepting the implicit assumption that the behavior stems from VOLITION. That's a huge difference from saying it stems from anxiety, autism, lack of social thinking about why the requirements are being made, lack of self awareness to be able to self regulate or improve how you feel, etc. 

In other words, you don't want a behavioral label that implies they're BAD when really they have root challenges resulting in this manifestation of behavior. You need the root problems. 

interoception

anxiety

chemistry

social thinking/perspective taking (which flows more logically after the interoception work)

Start there. 

My ds goes back and forth from workable to unworkable with chemistry. The anxiety comes from chemistry. He doesn't understand *why* someone can make demands (the autism piece) so when his chemistry goes he's completely unworkable. You also have pieces like processing speed, which you will get with thorough psych evals. You want to look for a psych who specializes in ASD who has experience with the IQ level of your dc (if gifted, etc.). 

It's a very hard row to hoe to say you're going to consider the dc's behavior problems your teaching problem. They're not and never were and no unschooling does not solve that. I'm not saying you end up at some great place of wow level accomplishment each day if you magically medicate and do this and that. I'm just saying you're not going to strategy away a chemistry problem and that there is no replacement for working on interoception (the most foundational piece of self awareness which leads to self advocacy and theory own mind leading to theory of others' minds). There is no replacement for working on root issues. 

THEN, when you have the chemistry and the self awareness and the self advocacy and self regulation, then you can bring in things. You may need some ABA type strategies. I particularly like the book Stuck Strategies https://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Strategies-What-Students-STUCK/dp/1937473996/ref=sr_1_2?crid=GLLW4JAZ2C8H&keywords=stuck+strategies&qid=1641917329&sprefix=stock+strategies%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-2 which you could begin to implement immediately. 

11 hours ago, Storygirl said:

our solution was sending him to school

Agreed. It's structure, predictability. It's NOT replacement for working on anxiety, chemistry, interoception. If you work on the anxiety, chemistry, and interoception (and any bonus language issues) AND get predictable, calm structure for intervention/educational opportunties, things will begin to happen. My ds has slowly worked up to what he tolerates and is doing better than I ever DREAMED he could do. If you put a kid into high demands WITHOUT the chemistry, anxiety, interoception, and language work, you can get stress and shut down. But if you deal with those root problems, you can make a way forward. For my ds, I'm beginning to talk with tutoring places about getting him online tutor options. He already does about 6 hours a week with therapists, but I think he could tolerate 3 hours a day at this point. This is a child who has been astonishingly hard to work with, so that's a big deal that he has that much self regulation that he can choose to work with people, choose to comply. We have his appts on google calendar and he monitors and keeps them. We have them show up as alarms with Alexa devices. 

 

On 1/5/2022 at 11:14 PM, anabelneri said:

talkbox.mom for foreign language

Does this dc have language issues or low processing speed? Of all the hills to die on, that's the one I'd LEAST focus on or fight about, frankly. Too many possibilities of ways unrealized disabilities could impact their ability to do it, leading to behaviors and pushback. If the kid is pushing back because they're having problems, that's valid and communication, kwim? Evals can help you with that.

I'm all over out of the box, totally agree. However there's no need to be non-evidence based in your approach here. We already know what works with these kids: 

-structure

-self regulation supports

-social thinking intervention

We already know. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. What you really need (just being blunt) is the diagnosis that opens the funding doors to make happen the therapies/interventions that will make it easier for someone to work with the kid.

You want to think end game here. Is the kid EMPLOYABLE? If you're talking languages, you're doing high school, right? So is the kid employable? Social skills are the #1 determiner of employability and a kid with oppositional behaviors, difficulty taking correction, EF issues, etc. is going to have challenges. Think about what is REALLY IMPORTANT here and don't get sidetracked.

https://www.ocali.org/project/tg_aata/page/elsa_documents

Edited by PeterPan
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