Strewing and PDA Guide

An Autonomy-Supportive Approach to Engagement

For many PDA people, autonomy is not simply about being given choices or being allowed to decide between options predetermined by somebody else. Having meaningful influence over what happens to them, how they participate, when they engage, how something unfolds and whether they engage at all can be deeply connected with felt safety.

This means that everyday interactions can carry considerably more relational information than adults sometimes realise. A suggestion can begin to feel like an expectation. An invitation can become an obligation. Help can feel like somebody taking over. Praise can create an expectation that something will happen again. A question can place an immediate expectation on the person to respond. Something that was enjoyable moments earlier may feel entirely different once another person begins directing, observing or evaluating it.

Within this context, strewing can offer a particularly useful way of thinking about engagement. Rather than asking how we can persuade, prompt or encourage a PDA person towards participation, strewing asks us to create possibilities while deliberately leaving ownership of what happens next with the person.

What Is Strewing?

Strewing originated within unschooling approaches and is generally associated with making interesting materials, experiences, information or possibilities available within a person's environment without requiring them to engage.

Within a neuroaffirmative PDA context, I conceptualise strewing as intentionally making possibilities available while protecting the person's autonomy over whether, when, how and for how long they engage with them. The important distinction is not simply how something is presented. It is what happens to ownership afterwards.

The person might investigate something immediately, notice it and return several hours later, adapt it into something completely different, engage briefly and move away, or ignore it altogether. For strewing to be genuinely autonomy-supportive, all of those possibilities need to remain acceptable.

Understanding PDA Beyond Demand Avoidance

PDA is frequently described predominantly through the language of "demand avoidance". While experiences of distress around demands can certainly form part of a PDA person's experience, focusing exclusively on avoidance risks reducing a complex experience to the behaviour that other people can observe.

I understand PDA, Persistent Drive for Autonomy, more broadly. Pressure, coercion, power imbalance or reduced autonomy may elicit protective responses that attempt to preserve agency, capacity and connection.

What we observe externally is therefore only one part of what may be happening.

The person's experience may also be influenced by uncertainty, sensory processing, interoceptive experiences, executive functioning, Monotropism, transitions, previous experiences, emotional intensity, being observed or evaluated, competing priorities, relational dynamics and their available capacity within that particular moment.

Demands can certainly contribute to pressure, but the demand itself does not necessarily explain the person's entire experience. The wider context matters. Sometimes even something a PDA person genuinely wants to do can become difficult once it feels externally controlled, expected or no longer entirely theirs. For me personally when I reflect on my younger years, those experiences felt violated and I no longer had capacity to participate no matter the innate motivation I may have felt, it was an internal ferocious tug of war, but externally may have looked completely different to another person.

We need to consider what is happening here around autonomy, pressure, power, capacity and relationship, and how can I create conditions in which this person retains meaningful agency?

Why Strewing Can Support PDA People

Strewing does not attempt to persuade somebody into participation. Instead, it changes the conditions surrounding participation. Something interesting can exist without immediately becoming an expectation. Information can be available without requiring a response. Support can be accessible without somebody having to request or justify it. An idea can enter the environment without another person taking ownership of what should happen next.

This can preserve something particularly important for PDA people: the experience of discovering, initiating, adapting or approaching something on their own terms.

It also recognises that capacity fluctuates. A person may have the ability to do something while not having access to that ability within a particular moment. Sensory load, uncertainty, executive functioning, cumulative stress, competing priorities, internal experiences and relational pressure can all influence what is accessible. Strewing therefore creates possibility without making participation the measure of success.

Invitation Versus Expectation

One of the most important principles of strewing is understanding the difference between an invitation and an expectation. An adult can place something on a table without saying a single word and still communicate, "I really want you to do this."

Tone, proximity, facial expression, repeated glances, anticipation, enthusiasm and what happens after the person engages can all communicate something about the adult's underlying intention.

Strewing is therefore not defined simply by the absence of a direct instruction. It is defined by the presence of genuine autonomy. If I leave paints on the table but become disappointed when they are ignored, the paints were not entirely free from expectation. If I casually mention baking but repeatedly return to the subject until the person participates, that becomes persuasion rather than strewing. If I leave a book nearby and later ask whether the person read the book I left for them, what initially appeared optional may retrospectively become an assignment.

Authentic strewing requires the adult to relinquish ownership of the outcome.

Power Matters Too

PDA-informed practice also asks us to consider power within relationships. Adults frequently hold considerable structural and relational power. We often determine what is happening, when it happens, where it happens, what resources are available, how long something should last and what constitutes successful participation. Even when we offer choices, we may still be the person deciding which choices are available.

This does not mean that adults should or can relinquish every responsibility. Children require adults to make decisions around health, safety, care and many aspects of everyday life. Rather, it means becoming conscious of where power exists and considering whether some of that control genuinely needs to remain with us.

Strewing provides an interesting opportunity to redistribute some of this ownership. The adult may introduce a possibility, but the person retains meaningful influence over what happens next. They determine whether they approach it, how they interact with it, whether they change it, how long they remain involved and when they leave.

In this sense, strewing is not simply about reducing pressure. It can help create a more equitable relational space in which agency and influence are more genuinely shared.

Autonomy, Attunement and Relational Safety

Autonomy within strewing needs to be genuine. The person can approach something, ignore it, change it, stop, return later or use it in a completely different way from the one the adult imagined.

Attunement is equally important. What feels spacious and inviting to one PDA person may feel intrusive to another. The person's communication, sensory experiences, interests, regulation, capacity, previous experiences and relationship with the people around them all matter.

Relational safety develops through what happens around these interactions over time. A person may need repeated experiences of discovering that "optional" really does mean optional.

If saying no, walking away or ignoring an opportunity changes the adult's mood, produces visible disappointment or results in further persuasion, then the person may learn that participation was not as optional as it initially appeared. Equity is therefore an important consideration. The adult does not position themselves as the person who automatically knows what the PDA individual should want, learn or do. Adults can bring knowledge, resources and possibilities into the relationship while recognising the person's expertise in their own experience.

Curiosity Without Surveillance

Something subtle can happen when a PDA person begins engaging spontaneously with something that has been left available. Adults can become excited. We move closer, ask questions, offer praise, take photographs or immediately begin extending the activity. Suddenly, something that belonged to the person has an audience.

For somebody who experiences being perceived, evaluated or externally influenced intensely, this change can alter the experience considerably. An activity that initially felt self-directed can begin to feel as though it now belongs to somebody else's agenda. Sometimes the most autonomy-supportive response to spontaneous engagement is simply stepping away as it unfolds.

What Can Strewing Look Like?

Strewing does not require elaborate activities. It might involve art materials appearing on a table, an interesting book being left somewhere accessible, Lego or construction materials becoming available, baking ingredients being visible in the kitchen, or something connected with a current interest entering the environment. The person determines whether anything happens next.

Strewing can also involve information. An adult might casually notice that there is a meteor shower tonight, that a favourite shop has something new, or that something interesting is happening locally.

An adult engaging authentically in their own activity can create another form of opportunity. Painting, baking, gardening, drawing, researching something interesting or beginning a puzzle because the adult genuinely wants to do it can support the PDA person to observe, join, comment, leave or take the activity in another direction without becoming the focus of the interaction.

Strewing can also be environmental. Personally meaningful sensory and regulation resources can remain accessible without requiring somebody to identify, verbalise or justify their need for them. Practical environments can similarly reduce unnecessary executive functioning load. A drink might already be accessible, clothes may be visible rather than hidden away, or the things needed for leaving the house might naturally be located together.

We can consider whether the environment itself can carry some of the cognitive, sensory or organisational load.

Strewing and Declarative Language

Declarative language can sometimes complement strewing because information can be shared without immediately requiring an answer. However, declarative language is not automatically autonomy-supportive.

There is an important difference between saying "Your coat is beside the door" as genuinely neutral information and saying exactly the same words while meaning "Put your coat on because we are leaving."

Changing the grammatical construction of an instruction does not necessarily change its relational meaning. The underlying intention, relational context and distribution of power remain important. Declarative language can therefore become another form of control if it is used simply to disguise instructions or achieve a predetermined outcome.

Your own authentic intention behind the declarative language, matters considerably more than sentence structure.

Following Interests Without Capturing Them

Monotropic interests can be powerful sources of meaning, regulation, connection, identity and learning for Autistic people. Strewing can gently build around those interests, but adults need to be careful not to take possession of them.

When every interest immediately becomes a teaching opportunity, therapeutic goal, incentive or route towards something an adult wants completed, an experience that originally belonged to the person can become externally directed. We can place related possibilities within the person's world without determining what they should learn from them, how they should engage or where their interest should lead. The person's interest does not need to become an adult's intervention.

Strewing Is Not Covert Compliance

Strewing should never become a sophisticated method of getting somebody to do what an adult wanted them to do anyway. If the underlying objective remains, "How can I make them do this without them realising I am asking?", the practice has moved away from genuine strewing.

Strewing is not a hidden prompt, disguised instruction, behavioural intervention or method of engineering compliance. Nor should its success be measured by whether somebody completes more activities or becomes easier to direct. I will often reflect whether I can make a possibility available while accepting that the response from my child may not be what I expected, and I need to be okay with that. If I cannot be okay with the outcome being autonomous to the child, then there is still an expectation attached to the offering.

When Strewing Does Not Feel Supportive

Strewing should not become another prescribed "PDA strategy". PDA people are individuals, and not everyone will experience the world in the same way. A person may recognise that something has deliberately been placed for them and experience that knowledge itself as pressure. Too many objects or possibilities may increase sensory or cognitive load. An activity may interrupt an important monotropic focus. Novelty may increase uncertainty rather than curiosity. The person may have very little available capacity, or previous experiences may have taught them that apparently optional activities eventually become expectations.

We can become curious about what the person's response might tell us about their experience, capacity, autonomy and environment.

The Adult's Role

One of the most significant changes within PDA-informed support may happen not within the PDA person, but within the adults around them.

Strewing asks adults to tolerate uncertainty. We may not know whether somebody will engage. We may not see immediate evidence of learning. An activity may unfold completely differently from how we imagined. Something we carefully prepared may remain untouched. It also asks us to be reflective and examine ourselves.

What happens inside us when the person does not participate? Do we become disappointed? Do we explain the activity again? Do we offer another choice? Do we start persuading? Do we find ourselves watching for the response we hoped to see?

This can be particularly difficult within systems where adults are accustomed to planning interventions and measuring success through observable participation. However, autonomy cannot meaningfully be offered only when somebody uses it in the way we hoped they would.

The adult's role is therefore not to orchestrate the correct response. It is to create possibilities while remaining attuned and responsive to what the person communicates.

What Might Change Over Time?

The purpose of strewing is not to produce a predetermined behavioural outcome. Within environments where autonomy is consistently respected, some PDA people may experience greater freedom to initiate, explore, experiment, connect and participate spontaneously. The most significant change is relational.

Through repeated experiences, the person may learn that they can say no without feeling as thought they are damaging the relationship. They can change their mind. They can approach something differently. They do not have to perform interest for another person. Their boundaries can be respected. Support can remain available without somebody taking over.

The person experiences that autonomy and connection do not have to exist in opposition to one another. They can retain ownership of themselves while remaining safely connected with other people.

Strewing Is a Way of Thinking, Not a Trick

Ultimately, strewing is much more than leaving interesting objects around a room. It reflects a different orientation towards support. This moves us beyond a narrow understanding of PDA centred solely on demand avoidance. Instead, it encourages us to think more deeply about autonomy, power, pressure, agency, capacity, attunement, relational safety and the contexts within which a person's responses occur.

Neuroaffirmative PDA support is not about becoming increasingly sophisticated at overcoming someone's resistance. It is about trying to understand what a person's protective responses, communication and responses may be telling us about their experience, and considering what we can change within the environment and relationship so that they do not continually have to defend their autonomy.

Strewing, when used authentically, is one way we can begin to create that space.

Continue Exploring PDA

Understanding pressure is one part of the wider picture.

You may also find these Little Puddins guides helpful:

• What is PDA? Learn about the characteristics of a Persistent Drive for Autonomy and why it is understood differently from traditional behaviour-based models.

• PDA Parenting Guide Explore practical, neuroaffirmative approaches to supporting everyday life at home.

• Declarative Language Discover how communication styles can influence autonomy, regulation and connection.

• PDA and School Understand how classroom environments, expectations and relationships shape participation.

• Autistic Burnout and Regulation Learn how accumulated stress can affect capacity across home, school and community.

References:

Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) and the Nervous System:

1. Foundational Understanding of PDA:

• Newson, E., Le Maréchal, K. and David, C. (2003) ‘Pathological demand avoidance syndrome: a necessary distinction within the pervasive developmental disorders’, Archives of Disease in Childhood, 88(7), pp. 595–600. Available at: https://adc.bmj.com/content/88/7/595 (Accessed: 1 February 2025).

• Johnson, M. and Saunderson, H. (2023) ‘Examining the relationship between anxiety and pathological demand avoidance in adults: A mixed methods approach’, Frontiers in Education, 8, Article 1179015. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1179015/full (Accessed: 2 February 2025).

• O’Nions, E., Happé, F., Viding, E. and Noens, I. (2021) ‘Extreme demand avoidance in children with autism spectrum disorder: Refinement of a caregiver-report measure’, Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 5(3), pp. 1–13. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00203-z (Accessed: 1 February 2025).

• O’Nions, E., Christie, P., Gould, J., Viding, E. and Happé, F. (2014) ‘Development of the “Extreme Demand Avoidance Questionnaire” (EDA-Q): Preliminary observations on a trait measure for pathological demand avoidance’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55(7), pp. 758–768. Available at: https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.12149 (Accessed: 2 February 2025).

2. Neurophysiological Perspectives:

• Porges, S.W. (2011) The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

• Porges, S.W. (2001) ‘The polyvagal theory: phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system’, International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42(2), pp. 123–146.

3. Insights for PDA Practitioners:

• O’Nions, E., Happé, F., Viding, E. and Noens, I. (2021) ‘Extreme demand avoidance in children with autism spectrum disorder: Refinement of a caregiver-report measure’, Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 5(3), pp. 1–13. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00203-z (Accessed: 1 February 2025)

• Haire, L., Symonds, J., Senior, J. and D’Urso, G. (2024) ‘Methods of studying pathological demand avoidance in children and adolescents: A scoping review’, Frontiers in Education, 9, Article 1230011. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2024.1230011/full (Accessed: 1 February 2025).

4. Neuroscience and Trauma-Informed Perspectives:

• Porges, S.W. (2009) ‘Reciprocal influences between body and brain in the perception and expression of affect: A polyvagal perspective’, The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice, pp. 27–54.

5. Real-World Lived Experience and Clinical Application:

• Christie, P. (2018) ‘PDA… the story so far’, PDA Society Resources. Available at: https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/resources/phil-christie-pda-the-story-so-far/ (Accessed: 1 February 2025).

A Note on the Evidence Base

Research specifically examining PDA remains in its relative infancy, and understandings of PDA continue to evolve. There remains considerable debate within research and clinical communities regarding its conceptualisation, terminology and relationship with Autism, and there is still much to learn directly from PDA people about the processes underlying their experiences and the forms of support they find helpful.

There is also not currently a robust evidence base specifically establishing strewing as an intervention for PDA. For that reason, I do not present strewing here as an evidence-based treatment, prescribed strategy or universally appropriate approach.

This article represents an evolving synthesis of my own lived experience as an Autistic PDA person and parent, together with emerging PDA research and theory, wider Autism research and neuroaffirmative understandings of autonomy, Monotropism, sensory experience, executive functioning, regulation, relational safety and person-centred support. Lived experience is particularly important within an emerging field, while also being recognised as experience rather than evidence that every PDA person will share the same needs or perspectives.

PDA people are not a homogeneous group. An approach that feels spacious, respectful and autonomy-supportive for one person may feel intrusive, uncertain or pressurising to another. The individual person's communication, preferences, boundaries and lived experience should therefore remain central to any support.

As the research base develops, and as knowledge generated by PDA people themselves continues to expand, this article will continue to be reviewed and updated. The intention is not to present a fixed or definitive model of PDA, but to reflect the best available understanding while remaining open to changing that understanding as we learn more.