Post #3 in category. We recommend reading posts in numerical order.
Introduction
Some of the prevailing assumptions guiding the parenting, assessment, teaching and treatment of children with significant developmental delays may need to change if we want to improve the child’s interpersonal connections, learning and development.
We may be diligent, compassionate and technically skilled but if our assumptions and efforts are fragmented, the child’s progress will be uneven and limited. We can do better, but doing better requires a shift not merely in technique, but in how we understand development itself.
The concept of Integrated Developmental Domain Systems is a foundational component of Parallel Assessment, Parallel Development, and Synontogeny, and will be referred to in many Organizing Minds blog posts.
Development does not occur in isolated domains, nor does it unfold in a linear sequence. It arises from multiple, interacting developmental domain systems, and between the child and the adults who mediate the child’s experience of the world.
Development as a Coherent Integrated System
Today, the prevailing assessment and treatment approaches with children with significant developmental delays consider each developmental domain (sensorimotor, emotion, social, cognitive, communication) to be understood largely as a domain in its own right.
Within each of these integrated developmental domain systems are multiple subsystems, reciprocally interactive and mutually regulating. Vision, for example, is not a single faculty but connected and coordinated functions: acuity, tracking, depth perception, visual attention, visual memory, and visual meaning-making are just some of the interactive components. These elements develop together, influence one another, and depend upon repeated use within real activities to become functional.
No developmental domain exists in isolation. Vision is shaped by audition, touch, balance, proprioception and movement. It is guided by motivation and emotional meaning. It is organized by attention, memory and prediction, and constructed by interpersonal engagement, understanding and guided practice. Each developmental domain is both internally integrated and externally dependent, forming a dynamic network rather than a collection of separate domains and skills.
We refer to the constantly changing, continually improving, networks of relationships, feelings, thoughts, actions, skills, understandings and learning as successful Integrated Developmental Domain Systems.
Nonlinear and Reciprocal Development
Development proceeds as nonlinear, reciprocal processes. A change in emotional regulation may reorganize attention. Improved sensory and motor processes affect communication. Adjusted reciprocal interpersonal empathy and communication with a teacher or therapist awakens curiosity and exploration. These changes occur not only within the child but also within the adults who live and work with the child.
This reciprocal growth between child and adult mediators is central to what I have termed synontogeny: the co-development of the child and the adults who guide, teach, and care for them. As adults adapt their expectations, rhythms, perceptions, and responses they reshape the child’s development and our own. The child’s emerging interests and competencies reshape the adults’ attitudes, understanding, sensitivity and strategies. Development is not something done to a child, but something co-constructed with a child.
Integrated Systems in Thinking, Feeling and Action
For the child’s thinking, feeling, and doing (and our own thinking, feeling, and doing), to be intentional, purposeful, and successful, multiple developmental systems must be constructed together and function together.
Attention is not merely a cognitive act. It is sensory, emotional, motivational and relational. Learning is not simply the acquisition of information; it depends on necessary prerequisites, including interest, attention, memory, meaning, communication, and trust. Meaningful communication requires sensory processing, motor planning, affective attunement, shared intentionality and turn-taking.
When developmental systems are underdeveloped or poorly integrated, or there are health and wellness issues, or deficient previous learning experiences, the child’s actions and problem-solving may be disorganized, impulsive, avoidant, or purposeless. Not because the child has this or that diagnosis, but because the child’s underlying developmental systems have not yet been consolidated into a functional whole.
Implications for Parallel Assessment and GPPSP
Understanding development through integrated systems profoundly alters how we assess and intervene. Parallel Assessment does not merely catalog deficits within isolated domains. It examines how learning and development systems function together under real-life demands. It asks not only what a child can learn to do, but also what we need to learn to be better mediators.
Within this framework, GPPSP, (Goals, Priorities, Prerequisites, Strategies, and Progress) is also defined in systemic terms. Goals relate to functional integration. Priorities identify which behaviors, skills, understandings and systems must be attended to first. Prerequisites clarify what foundational experiences need to be strengthened. Strategies focus on enjoyable, empathic, mediated interactions and learning experiences. Progress is evaluated by the increasing quality of interpersonal participation, increasing interest in and satisfaction during play and learning activities, increasing mental coherence and adaptive flexibility within and between integrated domain systems in real-life situations.
Beyond the Medical Model
This systems-based understanding stands in contrast to traditional medical models that locate problems within discrete structures or diagnoses. While medical knowledge remains essential, it is insufficient on its own for communication, learning and human development. Developmental system models recognize that growth emerges through ongoing interaction, meaning, and use through cooperative, collaborative lived experiences rather than isolated treatment and quick fixes.
Parallel Development Domain System Models draw from many sources including: constructivist assimilation and accommodation learning theory; mediation and social learning; the work of Vygotsky, Luria, Feuerstein and Trevarthen; advances in neuroscience research; humanistic psychology, Maslow’s emphasis on meaning and motivation; transactional models of infant and early childhood development, Stern; successful intervention programs for children with multiple disabilities; ecological systems theory, Bronfenbrenner, formative assessment practices; gifted colleagues, the neurodivergent community, children with special needs and their parents that I met and worked with over the years, and even the traditional wisdom of Torah, Talmud, and Jewish mysticism, with their emphasis on belief, relationship, responsibility and growth through engagement.
Integrated Development of the Child’s and the Adult’s Co-Evolving Domain Systems
Integrated Developmental Domain Systems apply not only to children but equally to mediating adults. Parents, caregivers, teachers and therapists each bring their own personal developmental domain systems, their own attitudes, biases, sensory preferences, emotional rhythms, attentional styles, communication strategies, belief systems, and individual and family histories. When adults become more aware of their own integrated development systems and how these systems interact with the child’s, they become far more effective mediators.
Parallel assessment of the child and the adult, and parallel development of both, allows for deeper mutual understanding and growth. As systems become more integrated on both sides of the relationship, communication improves, learning becomes more meaningful, and development becomes a shared, living process.
Integrated Developmental Domain Systems offer a more faithful map of how learning and development truly unfold and can be enhanced by Parallel Assessment and Parallel Development.
Copyright © 2025 Shlomo Chaim
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