INTRODUCING...

The Understanding and Managing The Anxiety and Defiance Mini Course

Crafted by Dr. Nicolene Shields, a Behavioural Neuroscientist, this mini course provides empirical knowledge to help understand:

1. How the brain’s fear, sensory & control circuits become sensitised in PDA

In this mini course, we unpack what’s happening in the brain when a child (or teenager) with a PDA profile faces everyday demands like getting dressed, going to school, or starting homework. PDA is widely described as an autism-spectrum profile where extreme avoidance of everyday demands is driven by anxiety and a powerful need for autonomy and control, rather than simple oppositional behaviour.  

We look at how:

• Threat and fear circuits (including the amygdala and related networks) can become “hyper-tuned” to demands, so that even neutral requests are processed as potential threats. This aligns with broader neuroscience research showing that pathological anxiety reflects overactive defensive responses to perceived threat, not weakness or willfulness.  

• Sensory processing differences and sensory over-responsivity add extra “load” to the nervous system, meaning that noise, touch, visual clutter, or social environments can make demands feel even more overwhelming for many autistic and PDA-profile individuals.  

• Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and a high drive for control make it hard for the brain to relax into “not knowing” what will happen next. Recent research suggests that elevated anxiety and IU help explain extreme demand avoidance in children and young people with a PDA profile.  

Parents come away with a clear, compassionate picture of the PDA brain: why it reacts so strongly, why your child isn’t “choosing” to be difficult, and why safety and predictability are so central.

2. Why traditional behaviour strategies often fail in PDA – and what works instead

This section explores why children with a PDA profile often don’t respond to standard behaviour charts, reward systems, or “firm but fair” approaches, even when those methods seem to work for other autistic or neurotypical children.

Current practice guidance and emerging research indicate that strategies typically used for autism or oppositional behaviour can be less effective or even harmful when applied to PDA, because they increase perceived demands and reduce the child’s sense of control – exactly what their nervous system is already fighting against.  

In this mini course, we:

• Explain how compliance-focused approaches (repeated instructions, “you must…”, loss of privileges, rigid routines) can escalate anxiety and trigger more extreme avoidance, meltdowns, or shutdowns, as described in clinical and parent reports of PDA.  

• Contrast these with collaborative, low-demand, autonomy-supportive strategies increasingly recommended by PDA-specific organisations and practice guidelines – approaches that emphasise choice, flexibility, humour, indirect language and relationship over control.  

• Link this back to the neuroscience: when a child feels coerced or trapped, their threat systems flare; when they experience agency, safety and connection, those systems quieten and learning becomes possible. 

You’ll leave with a deep understanding of why you’re not failing as a parent – you’ve just been trying to use tools that don’t match this neurotype – and what kinds of approaches the research and practice community are moving towards instead.

3. Concrete, neuroscience-informed steps to support regulation & reduce demand overload

The final part of the course is highly practical. Drawing on PDA-specific resources and broader anxiety and autism research, we translate the brain science into simple, doable steps for home, school and therapy settings.  

You’ll learn how to:

• Reduce the “threat load” of demands by changing how requests are framed (e.g. playful, indirect invitations; offering options; embedding demands in shared activities) and by proactively managing sensory and uncertainty triggers.  

• Use co-regulation strategies (your tone, body language, pacing, and presence) to signal safety to the child’s nervous system, helping to down-shift their brain from survival mode toward connection and problem-solving. 

• Build predictable, autonomy-respecting routines around tricky areas like school, hygiene, sleep and transitions – routines that protect the child’s need for control while still moving daily life forward. 

• Communicate what you’ve learned to teachers, therapists, and extended family, so the child experiences more consistent, neuro-affirming support across environments, in line with emerging PDA practice guidance.  

Your parenting transformation is waiting

Brainwise Academy empowers you to think differently about childhood development.

Let’s grow brighter minds - together.