PDA ARMY FIGHTING BACK!!

Today is the 15th February.  Those of us in a battle with PDA itself, or the diagnosis of it are fighting a war to get the condition recognised as it should be. We are also fighting a war to get the professionals who work with our children or diagnose or support us in any way to recognise this as a specific condition.

In the UK, some NHS trusts recognise, diagnose and treat PDA. Some deny its existence in any shape or form. Others, like Berkshire NHS, where I am agree it exists, however, they also believe that because it has similar traits to Obsessive Deviance Disorder, they will label as ODD. They say that according to the NICE guidelines PDA children display the same oppositional behaviour as ODD and that the treatment for PDA is the same as ODD (Webster Stratton programme) and therefore is PDA is suspected, a diagnosis of ODD is given as this condition exists in the medical reference guides used by all persons. I really hope you understood that because I am totally confused. In one part of the letter which I have, it clearly acknowledges that PDA exists. Then it describes the situation as above.

So, does PDA exist or not? Are our children, who show sometimes extreme autistic traits, suffer severe anxiety, have various sensory issues, struggle socially, show poor understanding of certain forms of communication and are really finding it hard to fit in really ODD?

If so, why does the National Autistic Society recognise PDA as different to ODD?
Why does the Elizabeth Newson centre specialise in PDA?
Why do so may private healthcare people show more understanding of PDA than ever and NHS specialist could?

As I said, the arm is fighting. We are fighting for fairness within the NHS, for fair diagnosis systems, for better understanding and for our right to find the best help possible for our children.

We are having a PDA awareness day today. We are sharing pictures and blogs across facebook and twitter. Some of us have emailed our MP's.

We are guiding people to two places. One is the PDA resource page and the other is to the On line petition to get things changed.

Please will you help?  We need people to share these and share on facebook THIS STATUS TOO.  This status has all the details on that you need. It also has the link to the PDA resource page which in turn has a link to the petition.

Join our fight. Lets get PDA on the map, where it rightfully belongs.