How to Support a Demand-Avoidant Child in Speech Therapy: Understanding PDA and Demand Avoidance

Friday 25 September 2026 | 10:30am–12:30pm (AWST)

A practical, neurodiversity-affirming webinar for speech pathologists who want to understand demand avoidance and PDA, and walk away with strategies they can use in their very next session.

This webinar is for speech pathologists working with children who experience significant demand avoidance, including children who may identify with a PDA profile. Together we'll unpack what demand avoidance is, what PDA is, how the two relate to each other, and what actually helps in the room, so you can keep working towards meaningful communication goals while respecting the child in front of you.

Webinar at a glance

Topic: How to Support a Demand-Avoidant Child in Speech Therapy: Understanding PDA and Demand Avoidance

For: Speech pathologists and relevant allied health professionals

Format: Live 2-hour online webinar

Date: Friday 25 September 2026

Time: 10:30am–12:30pm AWST

Investment: $150

Includes: Live Q&A, recording access for two months, resource pack, session slides and Certificate of Attendance

What if the child in front of you is telling you something important?

You've sat across from a child who can clearly do the task, who's done it easily before with no fuss at all, and then the moment you ask, something shifts and they shut down, push back or become distressed.

That's not a mystery to solve by trying harder with the same strategies. It's information, and once you understand what's underneath it, how you plan and run your sessions can change completely.

Here's what tends to be tricky:

How do you reduce pressure without letting go of the therapeutic goal?
How do you offer real autonomy without every session becoming a negotiation?
How do you notice the moment an ordinary activity has become a significant demand for this child, in this moment?
How do you explain what you're seeing to the parent sitting beside you, so they understand what their child is experiencing?

If you've been sitting with these questions, this session is for you.

Why this webinar is different

This isn't about getting children to comply with therapy tasks. It's about understanding demand avoidance and PDA well enough to reduce unnecessary pressure in the therapy room, while still working towards meaningful communication goals.

We'll stay grounded in speech pathology practice the whole way through, rather than importing general strategies and hoping they translate. We'll look at the language you use, the demands hiding inside everyday therapy activities, how you structure sessions, and what you can shift when a child can no longer participate the way you'd planned.

The goal isn't to lower your expectations of children. It's to give you more ways to reach those goals, ways that respect the child's autonomy, experience and capacity in that moment.

What you'll learn: PDA and demand avoidance strategies
for speech therapy

By the end of this webinar, you'll have a clearer understanding of demand avoidance and a practical set of strategies for adapting your therapy approach.

Understand demand avoidance and PDA, and what sets them apart

Demand avoidance: a response many people can have, an aversion to demands that's often driven by anxiety and a need to feel in control
PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, also referred to as Persistent Drive for Autonomy): a specific profile, most often discussed in relation to autism, where this drive for autonomy is pervasive and central to how a person moves through the world
The two overlap heavily, both rooted in anxiety and a real need for autonomy, not a choice to be difficult
Not every child who avoids demands fits a PDA profile, and knowing where the overlap sits, and where it doesn't, changes how you approach the child in front of you
This isn't about diagnosing a child from what you observe in therapy, it's a framework for thinking differently about what might help

Recognise the hidden demands in everyday therapy

Not everything that functions as a demand sounds like one
Direct instructions are the obvious kind, but questions, praise, transitions, expectations and even offering a choice can all create pressure
You'll learn to spot these hidden demands as they show up in your sessions
And how declarative language and commenting, rather than constant questioning or directing, can lower the pressure while still building genuine interaction

Build lower-demand therapy environments and transitions

Practical ways to think about your physical environment, pacing, transitions and session structure
How to adjust all of it based on a child's capacity in that particular moment
How to build flexibility in, so when a planned activity stops working, you have other paths to the same therapeutic goal without adding more pressure

Explain demand avoidance and PDA to parents and teachers with confidence

Plain-language explanations and analogies for talking with parents, teachers and other professionals
So they understand what the child may be experiencing, and why a different approach helps
Without the conversation sliding into "behaviour" or what a child "should" be doing

Practical PDA strategies you can use in speech therapy

This is a practical session, rather than one that simply gives you another way of thinking about demand avoidance.

Recognising demand avoidance as it's happening in a session
Telling PDA and broader demand avoidance apart, and knowing why it matters clinically
Spotting hidden demands in everyday interactions
Using declarative language to reduce pressure
Supporting genuine autonomy without losing the therapeutic purpose of the session
Adjusting pacing, transitions and session structure in real time
Matching demands to a child's capacity in the moment
Responding when a child says "no", or becomes distressed
Finding other paths to meaningful communication goals when the original plan isn't working
Talking about demand avoidance and PDA with parents and teachers, clearly and respectfully

The aim is not to remove expectations or therapeutic goals. It's to give you more ways to work towards those goals while respecting the child's experience, autonomy and capacity.

Who is this PDA speech therapy webinar for?

This webinar is for speech pathologists working with demand-avoidant children, whether in private practice, schools, community settings or other clinical environments.

It's for clinicians who've already sensed that reward charts, consequences or simply upping the pressure aren't the answer, and who want a clear, practical way to put that understanding into action in their sessions.

It's for you if you've ever thought:

"I know this child can do this. So why does asking them to do it make everything fall apart?"

If that sounds familiar, you'll recognise a lot of what we discuss.

The content is built specifically for speech pathologists, but allied health professionals, educators and support professionals who work alongside demand-avoidant children regularly will find plenty to take from it too.

What's included?

Live 2-hour practical webinar

A focused session packed with clinically relevant strategies, examples and practical guidance you can apply to your speech therapy sessions.

Composite case studies

We'll work through realistic clinical situations based on real therapy experiences, blended and de-identified to protect privacy.

Downloadable resource pack

Including a plain-language script to help you explain PDA and demand avoidance to parents and teachers.

Full PDF slide deck

You'll receive the complete session slides as a practical reference to return to after the webinar.

Live Q&A

Approximately 15 minutes to ask questions and explore how the ideas might apply to your own clinical situations.

Two months' recording access

Can't attend live? No dramas. You'll have access to the recording for two months so you can watch it when it suits you.

Certificate of Attendance

You'll receive a Certificate of Attendance for your professional development records.

$150

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About Di Van Der Walt

Di Van Der Walt is a speech pathologist with more than 20 years of clinical experience and the founder of Perth Hills Allied Health, a clinic hub for allied health professionals in the Perth Hills, WA.

Alongside her clinical work, Di mentors other speech pathologists through Supervision with Di, runs The Therapists Haven community, and provides professional training through Adult Learning Zones.

Di is also a finalist for Speech Pathologist of the Year 2026 through the Allied Health Awards.

The webinar draws on Di's extensive clinical experience, including the real situations that can leave clinicians wondering why a familiar approach has suddenly stopped working. The case examples used in the session are composite and de-identified.

But none of that is really why she's running this session.

She's running it because she's sat across from enough demand-avoidant children to know how easy it is to get stuck when the strategies that usually work suddenly don't.

And she knows how different it can feel when you stop looking at the child through a lens of "Why won't they do this?" and start asking what might be making participation so difficult in that moment.

This webinar brings together the practical strategies and clinical thinking that can help you make that shift, while still keeping your role as a speech pathologist and your therapeutic goals firmly in view.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to already know about PDA to join this session?

Not at all. We'll start with what PDA and demand avoidance mean and build from there.

If you've never worked with a demand-avoidant child before, you'll leave with a useful foundation for understanding what you may be seeing. If you already suspect that some of the children on your caseload have a demand-avoidant profile, you'll have the opportunity to deepen your understanding and develop a more practical response.

What are some PDA strategies for speech therapy?

Strategies can include reducing unnecessary pressure, recognising hidden demands, supporting genuine autonomy, adapting pacing and transitions, using declarative language and considering the child's capacity in the moment.

The aim isn't simply to remove therapeutic expectations. It's to find ways of working towards meaningful communication goals that are more accessible to the child and less likely to escalate distress or pressure.

This webinar explores these strategies in the context of real speech therapy situations, including what they can look like in practice

How can speech pathologists support a child who avoids demands?

A useful starting point is to consider what the child may be communicating through their response to a demand, rather than assuming a 'no' means they don't want to participate or don't understand the task.

Speech pathologists can consider the language they use, the demands embedded in activities, the level of choice and autonomy available, the child's capacity in the moment, and how the session is structured. Sometimes a small change in pacing, language or expectations can make a significant difference to whether participation feels possible.

We'll explore practical examples of this throughout the webinar.

What if I can't make the live session?

No dramas. The recording will be available for two months afterwards, so you can watch it in your own time.

I'd still encourage you to attend live if you can, as the Q&A provides an opportunity to explore questions and clinical situations that may not be covered in the main presentation.

Will this count towards my professional development?

You'll receive a Certificate of Attendance that you can use to record the session as part of your own professional development or CPD requirements.

As always, it's your responsibility to determine how the session fits within the requirements of your relevant professional body or workplace.

Is this only for speech pathologists?

The content is designed specifically with speech pathologists in mind, but allied health professionals, educators and support professionals who regularly work alongside demand-avoidant children may also find the principles and strategies useful.

Does this apply to older children and teenagers, or just young children?

The principles can apply across ages.

Most of the examples we'll work through are drawn from paediatric speech therapy, but the underlying strategies, including recognising hidden demands, adjusting pacing, supporting autonomy and using declarative language, can be relevant whether you're working with a five-year-old or a fifteen-year-old.

You'll feel at home here if...

You've worked with a child whose responses didn't seem to make sense through a traditional behaviour lens, and you've quietly wondered whether you were missing something.

You want to understand what might be happening underneath demand avoidance, rather than simply responding to the behaviour it produces.

You're tired of feeling as though your only options are to "push through" or abandon the goal, and you want a third option that allows you to keep working towards meaningful outcomes while reducing unnecessary pressure.

You need a way to explain demand avoidance to parents and teachers that builds understanding rather than making the child sound difficult or making you feel as though you're "making excuses" for them.

You want to understand how PDA and demand avoidance may affect the therapy experience, rather than simply adding another set of behaviour-management strategies to your toolkit.

And you want practical strategies you can use in your very next session, rather than simply another way of thinking about the problem.

If that's where you are, this webinar is for you.

Ready to approach demand avoidance differently?

Join Di Van Der Walt for this practical webinar on supporting demand-avoidant children in speech therapy.

You'll leave with a clearer understanding of demand avoidance, practical strategies for reducing unnecessary pressure, and more options for continuing to work towards meaningful communication goals while respecting the child's autonomy and capacity.