On euphemisms, PDA, and the rebranding of autism

When I look back on the early years of coming to terms with autism in our family, I understand the urge to rebrand it. The word autism lands hard at first. It sounds clinical, final, filled with sadness, injury, bad smells, and bleak prospects. In that first stage of reckoning—when your mind keeps circling what you imagined life would look like—the idea of a gentler label can feel like opening a window on a spring day.

For many families, Asperger’s offered that fresh air. It promised intellect without tragedy, difference without dependency, eccentricity instead of disability. It made the story easier to tell at family gatherings, easier to explain to teachers, easier to believe yourself. Parents could say high-functioning or twice exceptional and imagine they were protecting their child from stigma, when really they were protecting themselves from grief.

But the comfort had an underside. Those same words built an invisible hierarchy—children who could mask and those who could not, the acceptable and the inconvenient. The label Asperger’s became a social passport, a way to say yes, different, but safe. It bought tolerance without transformation. The lighting stayed fluorescent, the classrooms stayed crowded, and the system stayed unchanged.

And there were other rebrands: the highly sensitive child, the indigo child, an old soul—each new phrase offered transcendence where accommodation should have been. It turned neurology into personality, distress into insight, exhaustion into mysticism. The medical became spiritual; the political became poetic. The children stayed the same—dysregulated by the cacophony of classroom reality—only now they were supposed to feel proud about it. They would get to be on a poster that extolled the virtues of inclusion.

I see the same pattern repeating today with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). People say the term feels harsh and want something more affirming, something like pervasive drive for autonomy. I understand the instinct. The word pathological makes people flinch. But removing it does not soften the experience itself; it only cushions the observer. The drive for autonomy may sound philosophical, but for children like my son, it is biological. The body reacts to loss of control as danger. Every polite question, every well-meant request, floods his system with the same alarm as threat.

Language can comfort the adult, but it cannot change the child’s nervous system. Every new euphemism repeats the same mistake—translating biology into temperament so that systems can stay intact. True compassion begins where rebranding ends, when we stop trying to make difference sound easy and start making it livable.

Why the pathology matters

I have explained this in meetings so many times that the words now come automatically. My son’s “preference” for autonomy is a physiological requirement. Asking politely does not change the demand. Saying take a deep breath does not calm panic. Politeness does not deactivate the amygdala. His body treats every loss of control as danger—his chest tightens, his vision narrows, his hands clench before thought arrives. You can call that overreaction, or you can recognise it as the body preserving safety in an environment that overwhelms it.

When teachers insist that he “respect authority,” they misunderstand what authority feels like to him. Hierarchy burns across his skin. The expectation of obedience feels like danger. Tone, posture, sequence—every detail matters. Even a gentle Can you try this for me? registers in his body as threat. The words land as pressure, the pressure becomes heat, and the air seems to thin. Imagine being thrown into the ocean and held under. Would your instinct to fight for breath seem excessive? Dismissing the reaction never changes the biology.

That is why pathologising—naming the condition as a matter of neurophysiology rather than choice—is necessary. It keeps the discussion grounded in the body instead of moral imagination. “Pathological” may sound severe, but the word carries the precision euphemism lacks. It reminds everyone that these reactions are involuntary, that compliance is neither virtue nor safety, and that misunderstanding this difference creates harm.

The physiology of coercion

Comparing PDA to anxiety is also problematic.. Everyone has met someone anxious about flunking a test or stumbling during a presentation, and most of us know the script—reassure, normalise, offer perspective. As soon as someone says anxiety, everyone feels they understand what to do.

PDA lives in the body’s threat system, where the logic of reassurance collapses. It is the difference between fearing an exam and discovering a bear in the kitchen. When threat activates, cognition withdraws. Words no longer soothe because language cannot cross into that level of panic.

So when professionals recommend exposure therapy or calm-down routines, they unwittingly intensify the crisis. The idea of teaching tolerance works for mild fear; it fails for bodily threat. You can’t train someone to feel safe while their nervous system registers danger. That’s like teaching a drowning person to breathe underwater. Every well-intentioned prompt—“Take a deep breath,” “Let’s stay calm,” “Use your coping strategy”—reads as another demand layered on top of the first. The child’s system collapses under the weight of politeness.

Forced calm rewards suppression. It teaches children that self-betrayal is maturity. Over time, they learn that enduring discomfort earns praise, that politeness is virtue even when it feels like suffocation. The message is clear: your instincts are inconvenient, your alarm must be hidden, your comfort matters less than mine.

The long-term consequences are profound. When you gaslight a child’s body often enough, you teach them to mistrust sensation. Later, those same children grow into adults who question their own pain, who apologise for distress, who interpret exploitation as misunderstanding. The grooming begins in the classroom, under posters about respect and self-regulation.

What safety actually looks like

Real support starts before words. Teachers have to study posture as closely as they study curriculum. The early cues are small—shoulders stiffen, jaw sets, gaze flickers to the exit. Those signals mean the body is entering fight, flight, fawn, freeze. The correct response is to slow everything down: lower the voice, step back, reduce light and sound. Give space instead of reassurance.

Once regulation returns, the debrief must stay brief. You anchor in fact: “You noticed you were overwhelmed and stepped back. That worked.” The focus stays on validation and bodily awareness.

The mistakes are almost always the same. Adults keep talking. They hover. They interpret withdrawal as refusal. They praise calmness that is really shutdown. They assume politeness equals safety. Each of these errors deepens distress and erodes trust.

Real empathy means tolerating ambiguity, allowing silence, accepting that support sometimes looks like doing less. A teacher who truly understands PDA practices presence, not persuasion. And timing is its own form of literacy. Knowing when to speak and when to pause changes everything. My son loves to chat when he feels safe, to share long stories about his favourite subjects, to trade facts with teachers who are genuinely curious. When his body is calm, he lights up at conversation. But when he begins to feel trapped, even friendly talk can feel like intrusion. Understanding when curiosity welcomes connection and when silence offers protection is part of true attunement. The teachers he trusts are the ones who sense that rhythm—who can dive into his interests when he’s grounded and step back when his shoulders tense. It’s the art of knowing when language nourishes and when quiet keeps him whole.

The institutional loop

Schools love frameworks that sound compassionate but preserve control. “Social-emotional learning.” “Wellness initiatives.” “Self-regulation programs.” These are linguistic disguises for austerity. They redirect responsibility from system to student. Instead of hiring more student support assistants, we teach breathing exercises. Instead of redesigning classrooms for sensory safety, we print posters about mindfulness.

Behaviour charts, token economies, and restorative conversations all perform the same function: they transform systemic scarcity into individual moral failure. If the child struggles, it’s because they need more grit, not because the environment is unbearable. These frameworks make adults feel progressive while nothing material changes.

Every euphemism performs this bait-and-switch. “Drive for autonomy” sounds empowering, but it strips urgency from the problem. It turns pathology into philosophy, which means it can be debated instead of funded. When labels get softer, accountability evaporates.

The view from inside the meeting

Picture the school meeting: fluorescent lighting, folding chairs, a semicircle of professionals, all of them kind. They thank you for coming, for advocating, for caring. They use words like collaboration and communication while the clock ticks toward dismissal. You explain that your child experiences demands as physical threat, that politeness doesn’t neutralise compulsion. They nod, write something in a binder, and return to the plan.

Later, you find out the new strategy involves more social stories, more breathing prompts, more reflection sheets. The language is gentle, the effect violent. Each initiative reinforces the message that the child’s discomfort belongs to him alone. When he panics again, they say it’s about anxiety, not misrecognition. They say he needs more resilience. You begin to realise that the institution would rather rename harm than repair it.

Structural truth

Children like my son don’t need rebranding; they need architecture. Smaller class sizes, predictable schedules, lighting that doesn’t pulse, aides who understand nervous systems, leadership that believes parents. They need adults who interpret behaviour as communication, not defiance. They need autonomy treated as oxygen, not a preference.

Real inclusion costs money and humility. It requires admitting that the current design—26 children, one teacher, and no support person—is unsustainable. It requires confronting that “flexibility” has become code for underfunding. Until those conditions change, euphemisms will keep blooming to disguise the rot.

The unsoftened truth

Every softened term performs comfort for the oppressor. It lets adults imagine that compassion alone can solve biology. But the body doesn’t yield to semantics. Safety isn’t a feeling bestowed by tone alone; it’s a physiological state achieved through environment. The word pathological anchors that reality. It marks the line between choice and compulsion, between endurance and survival.

My son doesn’t want to be euphemised. He wants teachers who recognise his needs and don’t consider his needs extra. He wants a school that listens to what bodies say instead of forcing them to perform.