When we first learned about PDA, it seemed very different to the sterotypical view of autism that we thought we knew. Our daughter is very expressive (in her own way) and can mask her way through a social situation pretty well. She makes eye contact (with people she trusts) and doesn’t line up her toys or sit in the corner rocking.
Actually, that last part is not really true. She does rock. She also bounces and spins but we didn’t really notice because she did these as part of play. Also, she may not line up toys but she will spend time sorting and separating a sweet assortment before eating them.
As we learned to look beneath the surface, we began to see more and more. Yes, she can be very expressive and she can be absolutely charming in polite company but these are role-playing. Her understanding of social nuances was, and still is, much less than her surface behaviour would indicate. Over time, we have come to see that she has all of the challenges of the triad of autsim. It is just that she doesn’t always display these difficulties in the stereotypical way. We also began to realise that a lot of our stereotypical beliefs about autism were just plain wrong. It is when we learned to recognise these more subtle nuances that we really began to learn how to understand our daughter.
The autism community that we have now is awesome! We have learned so much about the actual lived experience of PDA that we would never have learned from a clinic or a medical textbook. I am truly grateful to those with real lived experience of PDA who share their experience so willingly, freely and with so much passion. Thank you.
What I have found is that the key to understanding PDA lies beneath the surface. PDA is not about the behaviour that you see. It is about the thought processes and emotional reactions that underpin the behaviours. Keep building that bond of trust and learning what is going on underneath.
Image copyright PDA Sense.