When four-year-old Beth asks her mum why her legs don't work like other children's, Sandra Lawrence tells her everyone is different and her 'special thing' is cerebral palsy. This week the extraordinary single mum-of-four talks to Chronicle reporter Selena O'Donnell.

Pretty Beth Lawrence began what will be a lifetime of treatment at just eight months old.

Sandra Lawrence, 31, already a parent to daughter Sophie, now 13, and son Joe, nine, had noticed that Beth, although bright and alert, wasn't developing at the same rate as other children.

Sandra, of Great Boughton, said: 'When she was six months old I took her to the GP after I realised that she was immobile and wasn't sitting up unaided.

'We didn't get a diagnosis until she was eight months old. Those two months were horrible. Everyone kept saying that she would be fine, because they wanted her to be fine. But I knew that something was wrong. Her legs were so rigid and she wasn't doing the things she should.'

Specialists told Sandra that Beth's cerebral palsy - which affects each individual differently - meant she would face moderate to severe spasticity of the lower limbs and a weakness down her left-hand side.

'Once they told us it was a case of 'Oh God, what's this then?',' said Sandra.

Although the cause of congenital cerebral palsy is not known, it's most common in premature babies, who are prone to bleeds in the brain, and newborns that don't cry in the first five minutes.

Sandra, who gave birth to fourth child Jack 20 months ago, has her own theory for Beth's condition: 'I had a difficult birth and that's where I think it's come from. She wasn't breathing when she was born and she had to be resuscitated.'

Initially, Beth's speech was a worry, when at three years old she could only say 'no'.

'But after a few months with a speech therapist she had picked it up fine,' remembers Sandra.

'We were given a lot of false hope, though - they kept saying she will walk.'

Sadly, this so far hasn't proved the case and Beth is confined to a wheelchair, which is beginning to frustrate the lively little girl.

Sandra said: 'She began to notice last year that she couldn't do the things that she could see all the other children around her doing.

'Since she started at playgroup that's got worse. She asks 'mummy, why can't I run over there like the other children?' I just tell her that she is special and that everyone is different in life and her different thing is that her legs don't work properly.'

Beth, who will start a course of Botox injections into her leg muscles in a bid to walk, has been nominated to go on June's trip to Disneyland Paris with the Chronicle -backed children's charity Miles of Smiles by family friend Jane Peers.

Sandra, who will leave her three other children with their grandmother to accompany Beth, added: 'She is so excited, she's got all her princess dresses out ready to go already.'