Following are questions asked by parents of special needs children:
1. Do special needs children understand cause and effect and also rewards versus punishments? Do they comprehend the same way 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? Simple. Try first by experimenting with different rewards and punishments based on your own experience. Have a plan 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) either the rewards/punishments were not sufficiently motivating (again, see the book for details) or
b) your child could not build a bridge between the behavior and the reward or punishment. If you wait too long to respond to a behavior then your reward or punishment may have little or no meaning. This is most often see when dealing with younger children.
If your plan doesn't seem to work at all then you need to stop and look at 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:
2. What do you do when all your best efforts to change a behavior have failed? Richard (the Dad) has been struggling with his child, Tim, who has PDD. Tim is supposed to do a few hours of physical therapy each day. But guess what? Much of the time he is not too keen on the idea!
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.
What can you do about this? You have two choices including:
a. You could become all upset and flustered about it. You get mad at yourself for your apparent failure. You feel like you are no service to your child. You want to find the magic trick that will make your child want to do his physical therapy session.
b. You stop and look at your situation. You take a deep breath and look at things realistically and logically. You are okay with the fact that half the time the physical therapy session may not happen, but this is still an improvement from how much physical therapy your child was accomplishing last year.
Which option, (a.) or (b.), will yield a better result?
The downfall of (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.
Sometimes you just have to learn to live with the fact that your child may never be totally motivated to do the physical therapy. It's sad, but true. It is better to work with what you have then cry about not achieving perfection.
It is critical that you 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 ward off stress and the results you want will occur. If things still don't improve would you want to have: a) limited performance and we are all angry? b) limited performance and we are all happy?
Don't try to fight battles you cannot win!
1. Do special needs children understand cause and effect and also rewards versus punishments? Do they comprehend the same way 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? Simple. Try first by experimenting with different rewards and punishments based on your own experience. Have a plan 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) either the rewards/punishments were not sufficiently motivating (again, see the book for details) or
b) your child could not build a bridge between the behavior and the reward or punishment. If you wait too long to respond to a behavior then your reward or punishment may have little or no meaning. This is most often see when dealing with younger children.
If your plan doesn't seem to work at all then you need to stop and look at 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:
2. What do you do when all your best efforts to change a behavior have failed? Richard (the Dad) has been struggling with his child, Tim, who has PDD. Tim is supposed to do a few hours of physical therapy each day. But guess what? Much of the time he is not too keen on the idea!
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.
What can you do about this? You have two choices including:
a. You could become all upset and flustered about it. You get mad at yourself for your apparent failure. You feel like you are no service to your child. You want to find the magic trick that will make your child want to do his physical therapy session.
b. You stop and look at your situation. You take a deep breath and look at things realistically and logically. You are okay with the fact that half the time the physical therapy session may not happen, but this is still an improvement from how much physical therapy your child was accomplishing last year.
Which option, (a.) or (b.), will yield a better result?
The downfall of (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.
Sometimes you just have to learn to live with the fact that your child may never be totally motivated to do the physical therapy. It's sad, but true. It is better to work with what you have then cry about not achieving perfection.
It is critical that you 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 ward off stress and the results you want will occur. If things still don't improve would you want to have: a) limited performance and we are all angry? b) limited performance and we are all happy?
Don't try to fight battles you cannot win!
About the Author:
Worried about your child's performance in school? Thinking about special educational needs? Get more of Dr. Noel Swanson's helpful articles, and get a FREE gift, at his parenting advice website, and check out his acclaimed GOOD CHILD Guide and free newsletter. Authoritative Parenting Style
