This thesis explores how educators understand (RQ1) and respond (RQ2) to demand-avoidant behaviours in schools, and how policies and culture shape responses (RQ3). It advances relational, ecological understandings of demand-avoidant behaviour, introducing a practitioner-informed framework that foregrounds relationships and highlights the need for systemic change to sustain support. Demand-avoidant behaviours (often termed 'PDA') have gained attention in UK educational and autism contexts (O'Nions et al., 2014a); however, research has focused predominantly on conceptualisation and aetiology, with practitioner perspectives and support strategies largely absent.
Five teachers and teaching assistants (two with dual SENCo roles) from one secondary, three primary, and one specialist setting in a single local authority took part in semi-structured interviews. From a social constructionist and relativist perspective, I used Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022) to develop themes reflecting participants' constructions.
Eleven themes were generated. For RQ1, participants understood demand-avoidant behaviours as anxiety-driven, involuntary responses shaped by neurodevelopmental and socio-environmental factors, while navigating conceptual uncertainty about classification and terminology. For RQ2, participants prioritised a relational approach characterised by trust, attunement, emotional safety, shared agency, and calibration of demands, constructed as mediating demand-avoidant behaviours and supporting participation. For RQ3, this approach was supported or constrained by behaviour policies, professional dynamics, leadership, and cultural expectations of schooling.
This research concludes that demand-avoidant behaviours are best understood within a relational, ecological framework, contributing to literature (Doyle & Kenny, 2023; Green et al., 2018; Milton, 2012) that challenges medicalised, within-child explanations and emphasises relationships and systemic factors in shaping demand-avoidant behaviours and practitioners' capacity to respond relationally.
Implications suggest Educational Psychologists should legitimise relational approaches; staff should recognise their interactions as central to CYP's safety, supported by a practice framework (Appendix V); leaders must embed relational approaches, supported by a self-reflection tool (Appendix X); and national policy should reflect relational frameworks.
