Frameworks and tools
This category includes both the institutional tools commonly used in schools — like PBIS, Zones of Regulation, behaviour charts, and safety plans — and the counter-tools developed by families, advocates, and allies. It explores how frameworks shape power, perception, and participation: whose needs are centred, whose behaviours are corrected, and whose values are embedded in the system. From state-sanctioned protocols to radical alternatives, these are the mechanisms through which control is asserted or challenged — and the blueprints we use to navigate, disrupt, or remake the rules.
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Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
Pathological Demand Avoidance is a neurobiological profile of autism rooted in anxiety, autonomy, and nervous system threat perception. For children with PDA, even simple requests can register as danger. A question, a suggestion, a cheerful invitation—all of these may activate a survival response, because the child’s nervous system experiences demand as threat. When this pattern…