1. How do special needs children understand cause and effect and also rewards versus punishments? Do they understand the same as other children?

The fact is that this is not an issue. No matter what type of living being you are we akk have an interest in reward versus punishment to some level. Think about the bottom of the food chain such as a cockroach. Cockroaches despise the light and live to move around in the dark hours of the night. They associate good feelings with dark and bad feelings with light. They might not think about it, but rather just feel it based on experience and instinct.

Turn on the lights and the roach goes scuttling for darkness. In a very basic sense, light = punishment and darkness = reward. The behavior of escaping from light to dark is rewarded, and so is repeated.

But roaches are not trainable. To be trainable, you also need a memory. Dogs have a memory. They can remember that if they hear the word "sit" and they do so, they normally get a reward (a treat or praise).

The more sophisticated the creature, the better their memory and analytical skills, and the greater their awareness of time (i.e. that future events will happen) then the more complex the varieties of reward and punishment that can be used.

What reward and punishments should you dole out? Easy. Try first by experimenting with different rewards and punishments based on your own experience. Have a system of rewards and punishments that will affect your child's behavior. Make sure that you are consistent. If their behavior changes then you have accomplished your goal. If it does not then take these two things into consideration:

a) your rewards and punishments systems did not have large enough effct in your child's life or

b) they were unable to make a connection between the behavior and the consequent reward or punishment. For example, if the time interval between behavior and consequence is too long, then the younger or less able child may not be able to connect the two.

If your system doesn't seem to be effective then you need to stop and evaluate what you are doing. Make improvements and modifications. Try the system another time. Keep changing the system until you find one that works. If you are unable to find a system that works then think about the following:

You have tried all of the tips you can think of and your child's behavior hasn't changed. For example, maybe your child had PDD. You are required to complete a few hours of physical therapy with your child eacy day. However, your child doesn't want to do the physical therapy.

You try everything you can think of and read the book thoroughly. You try different reward and punishment systems to no avail. You have struggled to make physical therapy appear like a fun time. No matter what you do, you are not accomplishing the physical therapy session every day.

So what is one to do? Well you have two options here:

a. Richard could get stressed and worried about this. He can berate himself for failing to get his child to do the therapy he needs, and he can continue the search for some magic wand that will somehow motivate Tim to do those exercises. Or,

b. He can step back, look at the situation, and take a calmer, more pragmatic approach, accepting that maybe 50% of the time is all he is going to get, and that that is better than the 30% that Tim was doing a year ago.

Which is better?

The downfall fo (a.) is that your stress level will sky rocket which affects everyone negatively. You are not having a fun time and your results won't improve this way.

The reality is that there is, perhaps, nothing on Earth that would motivate Tim to do those exercise 100% of the time. Sorry. But we live in an imperfect world, and maybe the child in the wheelchair really will never walk. We would all wish it were different. But if that is how it is, then that is how it is.

Therefore, you should pay attention to your child's specific needs. Strive to define success off of what you are provided with and not an ideal. When you do this, you will alleviate stress and the results you want will happen. If things still don't improve would you want to have: a) 1/2 performance and we are all upset? b) 1/2 performance and we are all feeling good?

The key point is to not try to compete to an ideal level when it might not be a realistic goal.