This session explores demand avoidance as a natural, anxiety-driven response rather than a behavioural choice. It examines how anyone can express demand avoidance at times in life, and what to do if it’s become more of a persistent struggle. This means exploring what counts as a demand, and why they can feel overwhelming at various life stages.

The participant will be able to:

1. Define demand avoidance and explain how it differs from non-compliance, defiance, or deliberate refusal.
2. Identify internal and external demands, including sensory, emotional, and social demands, that contribute to demand avoidance in autistic people.
3. Apply low-arousal, collaborative strategies to reduce demand perception and support autonomy and regulation.

1. Introduction: 1 minute (welcome, presenter background, ground rules)
2. What Are Demands?: 1 minute (types of demands, demand overload, decision fatigue)
3. Demand Avoidance as a Natural Trait: 5 minutes (demand avoidance as a natural response, stress factors, pathological demand avoidance)
4. Growing Up Different: 5 minutes (challenges autistic people face, trauma, micro-corrections, masking)
5. Executive Function and Learning Barriers: 2 minutes (task difficulty, reasonable adjustments, learning styles)
6. Window of Tolerance: 1 minute (narrow tolerance windows, sensory overload, sleep/eating issues)
7. PDA Strategies: 6 minutes (PDA Panda framework, picking battles, enabling choice, anxiety management)
8. Reducing Perception of Demands: 2 minutes (phrasing changes, depersonalizing, distraction, role play)
9. Changing Your Mindset: 2 minutes (reframing behaviour)
10. Other Contributing Factors: 1 minute (depression, trauma, physical health conditions)
11. Conclusion and Resources: 1 minute (YouTube channel, website, additional videos)

TOTAL: 27 minutes