Your Custom Text Here
Autism · counselling & parent work
Autism Support, at their pace.
For autistic kids and teens, and the families around them. Acceptance first, then the practical help that makes the world more livable.
Support that starts from acceptance
Autistic children and teens are not broken versions of neurotypical ones, and support that treats them that way fails them. What helps is understanding the wiring: the meltdowns and shutdowns that follow overload, the exhausting business of masking all day at school, the friendships that keep misfiring, the sensory world set to the wrong volume, and the anxiety that grows in a world that does not bend.
When should we seek help?
When school has become a daily cost rather than a place, when the after-school meltdowns are the whole evening, when anxiety or low self-esteem has crept in, or when the family is running on eggshells and calling it normal. Before or after a diagnosis; plenty of families arrive with a question rather than a label.
How does Sandra work with autistic young people?
At their pace and on their terms. Counselling for the young person: anxiety, self-esteem, and recovering from masking, using creative approaches that do not depend on talking about feelings in the neurotypical way. Parent work, because the household runs differently around autism and parents deserve strategies built for their actual child. And practical support: the one client said it plainly, that the moment her daughter understood her own wiring, home got easier.
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
Some autistic children and teens have a PDA profile: an intense need to avoid everyday demands and expectations, because even small requests can feel overwhelming and bring a sharp sense of losing control. It can look like extreme resistance to simple asks, procrastination, negotiation, distraction, excuses, or real distress when asked to do something, even something they genuinely want to do.
A child with a PDA profile can seem controlling, defiant, or oppositional. Underneath there is usually significant anxiety and a need to feel in control, often alongside rapid mood changes, hard transitions, and strain at school, in friendships, and at home. PDA looks very different from child to child, and understanding what sits behind the behaviour can be the key to finding approaches that work.
Sandra has many years of experience with children who have a PDA diagnosis or show PDA-type behaviours, and with the parents working to understand and navigate it.
Autism Funding in British Columbia
Sandra supports BC families accessing Autism Funding, providing individualized therapeutic services under it. If your child has a diagnosis and funding in place, mention it on the discovery call and she will walk you through how it works for your family.
Sandra is a parent of two neurodivergent teens, alongside more than a decade of counselling neurodivergent children and their families.
"The moment our daughter understood that she had special needs, the situation at home improved. We as a family have become more accommodating, which makes her feel more accepted and as a result more easy going."
Parents of a 12-year-old
Sessions run in person in North Vancouver and online across the UK, Canada, and worldwide. Times and logistics live on those pages; every fee is on the fees page.
Related pages
See also neurodivergent support, ADHD support, big emotions, and school avoidance.
-
No. Nothing here is about making an autistic child less autistic. The work is about making the world more livable, school less costly, anxiety smaller, and the family more fluent in how they actually work.
-
Yes. Counselling itself is not a diagnostic service, and where a formal assessment would genuinely help, Sandra will say so and point you to the right professionals. The support does not wait for the paperwork.