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Little Champs ABA > Autism > Declarative Language: 40 Ways to Phrase a Request So Your PDA Child Can Say Yes

Declarative Language: 40 Ways to Phrase a Request So Your PDA Child Can Say Yes

BCBA and young child talking during an ABA therapy activity.

“Put your shoes on” gets a meltdown. “I see one shoe still under the couch” gets a kid who is dressed five minutes later, without ever being asked directly. At Little Champs ABA, this is one of the first things I teach new families: the problem usually is not the task. It is the demand itself.

Declarative language swaps direct commands for observations that leave room for a child to arrive at the same outcome on their own terms, and it is one of the tools our team builds into communication plans for kids with a pathological demand avoidance, or PDA, profile. Below is why it works, plus 40 phrases organized by the moments where you will need them most, straight from what we use in ABA therapy sessions.

What Declarative Language Changes About a Request

Before getting to the phrase list, it helps to understand the mechanism behind why this works, since that understanding is what makes the technique stick once the new phrasing stops feeling natural.

Imperative Language Signals a Demand

Most everyday speech is imperative: put your shoes on, sit down, say please, get in the car. It is efficient, and for most kids it works fine. But imperative language has exactly one correct response built into it, comply or refuse, and that binary is precisely what a demand-avoidant nervous system reacts against.

Declarative Language Signals an Observation

A declarative statement describes a situation instead of issuing an instruction: there are two shoes by the door, it looks cold outside, the car is unlocked whenever you’re ready. There is no explicit correct response, which is exactly the point. The child can act on the observation, ignore it, or respond in their own way, and that flexibility tends to lower the perceived threat enough for cooperation to happen anyway.

Why This Distinction Makes a Difference for a PDA Profile

For a child with a pathological demand avoidance profile, first described in clinical literature by researcher Elizabeth Newson, the resistance to demands is not strategic defiance. It functions as an anxiety-driven need for control, and a growing body of research on demand avoidance and anxiety suggests the two are closely linked. Removing the explicit demand does not remove structure from a child’s day. It removes the trigger that turns an ordinary request into a fight-or-flight response.

Recognizing a PDA Profile in the First Place

Declarative language helps a wide range of kids, but it tends to matter most for a specific pattern of behavior. Here is what that pattern usually looks like before you get to the phrase list.

It Is Not Defiance, It Is a Threat Response

A child with a demand avoidance profile often wants to comply and still cannot, because the demand itself, regardless of how reasonable it is, registers as a loss of control. That distinction changes how you respond as a caregiver: consequences aimed at defiance tend to backfire, because the behavior was never about defiance to begin with.

Common Signs Parents and Grandparents Notice

Negotiating, stalling, distracting, or turning a simple request into an elaborate excuse are all common social strategies kids use to avoid a demand without an outright refusal. Sudden mood shifts when a request feels unavoidable, and a strong need to initiate activities themselves rather than being told to start them, round out the pattern most families describe.

A Note on Diagnosis and Terminology

PDA is not currently a standalone diagnosis in the most commonly used diagnostic manuals in the United States, and researchers continue to debate how best to define and measure it. In practice, most clinicians treat it as a profile within autism that calls for a different support approach rather than a separate condition requiring its own diagnostic code. What matters clinically is the pattern of anxiety-driven avoidance, not the label attached to it.

40 Declarative Phrases to Try, Organized by the Moments That Come Up Most

These are grouped by the daily moments where demand avoidance tends to show up hardest. You do not need to memorize all forty. Pick the two or three categories where your family struggles most and start there.

Morning Routine

  • Instead of “Get up, it’s time for school,” try “The bus comes in twenty minutes and I’m putting breakfast on the table.”
  • Instead of “Get dressed now,” try “Your clothes are laid out on the chair.”
  • Instead of “Brush your teeth,” try “I don’t think the toothbrush has been used yet this morning.”
  • Instead of “Come downstairs,” try “Breakfast is getting cold on the counter.”

Getting Dressed

  • Instead of “Put your shoes on,” try “I see two shoes by the door and one foot without a shoe.”
  • Instead of “Wear a coat,” try “It’s twenty-eight degrees outside today.”
  • Instead of “Take off your pajamas,” try “Your school clothes are on the bed whenever you’re ready.”
  • Instead of “Zip up your jacket,” try “That zipper looks like it’s still open.”

Meals

  • Instead of “Eat your vegetables,” try “There are some carrots on your plate.”
  • Instead of “Sit down at the table,” try “Dinner’s ready and your seat is open.”
  • Instead of “Use your fork,” try “I notice the fork is still next to your plate.”
  • Instead of “Finish your food,” try “There’s still a little food left whenever you’re ready.”

Transitions and Leaving Places

  • Instead of “Time to go, put your shoes on,” try “We’re leaving in five minutes, so your shoes might be worth finding now.”
  • Instead of “Get in the car,” try “The car’s unlocked whenever you’re ready to head out.”
  • Instead of “Say goodbye to Grandma,” try “Grandma’s about to head home.”
  • Instead of “Stop playing, we have to leave,” try “We have about two more minutes before we go.”

Chores and Cleanup

  • Instead of “Clean up your toys,” try “There are a lot of toys still out on the floor.”
  • Instead of “Make your bed,” try “Your blankets are still where you left them this morning.”
  • Instead of “Put your dishes in the sink,” try “I see a plate still on the table.”
  • Instead of “Pick up your backpack,” try “Your backpack is sitting in the hallway.”

Homework and Screen Time

  • Instead of “Turn off the tablet,” try “Screen time ends in about five minutes.”
  • Instead of “Do your homework,” try “Your homework folder is still in your backpack.”
  • Instead of “Stop watching TV,” try “This episode is almost over.”
  • Instead of “Log off the game,” try “I wonder how much longer this level will take.”

Bedtime

  • Instead of “Go to bed,” try “It’s getting pretty late.”
  • Instead of “Brush your teeth before bed,” try “The toothbrush is still dry.”
  • Instead of “Turn off the light,” try “That light is still on in your room.”
  • Instead of “Get under the covers,” try “Your bed is ready whenever you are.”

Social Moments and Manners

  • Instead of “Say please,” try “I love it when I hear the word please.”
  • Instead of “Say hi to Grandpa,” try “Grandpa just walked in the door.”
  • Instead of “Share your toy,” try “Your sister looks like she’d love a turn.”
  • Instead of “Say sorry,” try “It looked like that surprised your brother.”

Safety

  • Instead of “Hold my hand in the parking lot,” try “Parking lots can be tricky with all the moving cars.”
  • Instead of “Don’t touch the stove,” try “That stove is really hot right now.”
  • Instead of “Put your seatbelt on,” try “I like hearing a click when the seatbelt is all the way on.”
  • Instead of “Stay where I can see you,” try “I like knowing where you are at the park.”

Hygiene

  • Instead of “Take a bath,” try “The bath is running whenever you’re ready.”
  • Instead of “Wash your hands,” try “Dinner’s about to be ready and the sink is free.”
  • Instead of “Comb your hair,” try “Your hair looks like it had a busy day.”
  • Instead of “Wipe your face,” try “There’s a little syrup right by your mouth.”

Making Declarative Language Stick

Swapping a handful of phrases is the easy part. Turning it into a habit that survives a hard, tired, rushed Tuesday morning takes a bit more.

Pair It With Patience, Not Just New Words

Declarative language buys a child processing time, and that only works if you genuinely give them the pause. Resist the urge to follow a declarative comment with an impatient reminder ten seconds later. That turns the comment right back into a demand.

Model the Response You Hope to See

Sometimes the most useful move is narrating your own actions rather than commenting on your child’s: “I’m putting my shoes on since we’re leaving soon.” This uses AAC and communication strategies logic that applies well beyond communication devices themselves, showing rather than instructing, and it tends to feel less like pressure even than a gentle declarative comment aimed directly at the child.

When Declarative Language Is Not Enough On Its Own

Some moments genuinely need a direct instruction, and that is fine. Safety situations are not the place to rely on subtlety. Declarative language is a tool for reducing everyday friction, not a replacement for clear communication when something urgent is at stake, and pairing it with visual supports or an AAC device can help when spoken language alone, in either direction, is not landing.

How Little Champs ABA Supports Communication Like This

Declarative language is one piece of a much larger communication toolkit we build with families, tailored to each child’s specific triggers and communication style rather than applied as a one-size-fits-all script. That support looks like:

A family we support near Boulder started with just five of these phrases around bedtime and expanded from there once mornings started going more smoothly too. A parent in Longmont told us the biggest shift was not the phrasing itself but learning to sit with the pause afterward instead of filling the silence. 

If your family is navigating a demand avoidance pattern, reach out to our team to talk through what individualized support could look like.

Frequently Asked Questions About Declarative Language and PDA

Does declarative language mean I can never give a direct instruction?

No. It is a shift in your default communication style for everyday, low-stakes requests, not a rule against ever being direct. Safety situations and genuine emergencies still call for clear, direct language.

How is PDA different from a child just being defiant or spoiled?

Defiance is typically strategic and responsive to consequences. A demand avoidance profile is anxiety-driven and often shows up even when a child genuinely wants to comply, which is why traditional consequence-based approaches tend to increase the resistance instead of reducing it.

Will declarative language work right away?

Some families notice a difference within days. For others, especially if a child has a long history of demands feeling like a fight, it takes weeks of consistent use before the shift in tone starts to register as genuinely different from what came before.

Is PDA an official diagnosis?

Not currently, at least not as a standalone diagnosis in the manuals most commonly used in the United States. Most clinicians treat it as a recognizable profile within autism that benefits from a distinct support approach, rather than a separately diagnosable condition.

Sources:

  • O’Nions, E., et al. “Identifying Features of ‘Pathological Demand Avoidance’ Using the DISCO.” PMC/NIH. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4820467/
  • “Understanding the Contributions of Trait Autism and Anxiety to Extreme Demand Avoidance in the Adult General Population.” PMC/NIH. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9015283
  • “Development of Language and Pragmatic Communication Skills in Preschool Children with Developmental Language Disorder.” PMC/NIH. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12293117/
  • PDA Society. “About Demand Avoidance.” https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/what-is-pda/about-demand-avoidance/
  • American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. “Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder” (Practice Portal). https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/autism/