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It has been my experience that children with neurodivergences have more in common with neurotypical children than differences, much more similar than they are currently able to show.
Whether a child is neurotypical or neurodivergent, verbal or nonverbal, composed or chaotic, we all share certain irreducible human motivations. What matters most in child development is not how a child is categorized or diagnosed, but how their essential human needs are seen, acknowledged and nurtured.
Unfortunately, we often make the mistake of beginning with labels, with checklists and protocols, as though a child’s essence could be captured in a code or a category. Children are far more than their diagnosis. The child’s need to connect, to play, to learn, to be recognized and understood is no less urgent than our own.
What is needed is not simply a different approach to assessment, education and treatment, but a deeper, more authentic and more valuable understanding and belief system. A way of seeing the child not only through the lens of diagnosis, but through the lens of a shared humanity.
This is the spirit behind Parallel Assessment, a framework not of deficits but of human alignment, where the goals for the child and the adult mediator are one and the same: to connect, to progress, to learn and to find fulfillment.
We do not begin with a chart or checklist. We begin with this child and with our play and learning relationship with this child. To know this child and to understand this child and their personal development also involves discovering ourselves. There is a Parallel Assessment and a Parallel Development.
We recognize that the child with developmental delays is more like all other children than they are different. And this child is more like us than they are different from us. Our assessments do not focus on differences. We focus on what this child needs to connect and to progress, and on what we need to better communicate with them and what we need to help them to want to be with us, to want to know, to want to learn and to want to advance.
We look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs not as dogma, but as a reminder of our commonalities. We all need to be healthy, to feel safe, to belong, to be valued, to learn and to know, to grow, to have meaning and purpose. These are not luxuries or abstract ideals. They are foundational. And these universal needs, these umbrella needs, must also be recognized for children whose lives are too often reduced to therapy schedules and compliance goals. Human needs and motivations have to be included as a core part of the child’s assessment and treatment plan.
Maslow distinguished between the first three needs, which he called “deficiency needs,” those driven by what is lacking, and the higher or “growth needs,” which are based on our desire to develop. According to Maslow, once these first three needs are met, they do not continue to be a primary source of motivation. The growth needs continue to motivate us even after they are met.
When nature has created obstacles and delayed the development of any of our universal human needs, it is up to the child’s devoted and knowledgeable adult mediators to help nurture and inspire their development.
Parallel Assessment
Parallel Assessment does not begin with what is broken or missing. It begins with universal human goals, the prerequisites for becoming.
Every child needs to feel that they are in control of their own body, emotions, thinking and actions. Every child can learn to feel safe, to explore, to experience the real world, to play and to learn with enjoyment and delight. Every child has a right to better understand their world, and to anticipate what will come next.
All human beings are deeply social beings. All children need affirmation, the feeling they belong, and the sense of being liked and loved. But relationships are more difficult, and are even avoided, if the child or the adult has not yet learned the prerequisite skills for fulfilling interpersonal connections and communication.
We all need routine and order, and we also need the freedom to imagine, to be spontaneous. There needs to be the right balance for each individual, at the right time, place and situation. In addition to structure and imagination, we need the right kind of external support that builds internal motivation. People need more than empty instructions and mechanical compliance to commands. All people, young and old, need to seek purpose and understanding to bring coherence and meaning to our lives.
Children need to feel respected for who they are now and for who they can become. They need our understanding and our belief in their plasticity, in their greater competencies than they are currently able to show, and they need our belief in their capacity to grow. All children need to believe in their parents and in their knowledgeable, empathic, and dedicated adult mediators; and their adult mediators need to believe in the child and in themselves.
We must not forget what Reuven Feuerstein reminded us: “No one is uneducable.” The potential to learn, to change, to develop is woven into our biology and into our culture. Understanding and believing in this child and in yourself is transformative.
Copyright © 2025 Shlomo Chaim
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