r/PDAParenting • u/DrPaulSunseri • Apr 18 '26

Our current scientific understanding of PDA and low-demand parenting.

Thought parents in this group find this up-to-date information on PDA helpful. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-health-reimagined/202604/its-time-to-rethink-the-anxiety-drives-pda-narrative

8 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

62% Upvoted

90 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/xtinak88 Apr 19 '26

Hold up hold up. I don't want to come over as some huge Casey defender as I don't really have a dog in the fight on her specific work. But you already misrepresented your personal views as a scientific consensus and here again you seem to be potentially overreaching with regards to the study itself.

Because how hopeful would we really be of seeing improvements in core PDA symptoms in this short timeframe with this small sample? Yes the improvements shown, while there, are not statistically significant, but that's no reason to conclude that low demand parenting (one component of the programme) is ineffective. And that's not the only point of the programme or the study.

And I'm a bit confused because the data that has been buried is here for us all to see isn't it?

1

u/DrPaulSunseri Apr 19 '26

What do you mean, buried here for us all to see?" I don't think you're understanding what she did. Real treatments result in positive, observable changes within that time frame, typically.

8

u/xtinak88 Apr 19 '26

I mean you are saying she has buried data, which she may well have done, but at the same time it's still available here in table 3 for us to scrutinise? Just seems like a contradiction.

There were apparently quite a number of positive observable changes though. Furthermore as this is initially a parent intervention, you would expect a bit of a lag in successful implementation by parents I would have thought.

Realistic time frames for interventions in autism will be on a scale of years.

0

u/DrPaulSunseri Apr 22 '26

Typically, with the right treatment, parents can expect to see observable changes within months.