Post #5 in category. We recommend reading posts in numerical order.

A significant shift in our developmental thinking occurs when we stop focusing on “What is wrong with this child?” and begin asking, “How is this child’s development system organized and expanded?”  and “How can we help?” This shift in perspective and goals fundamentally alters what we observe, what we value, and how we intervene.

Developmental disabilities and developmental delays are largely described in terms of deficits, and interventions mostly involve divided instruction. Children have been identified by how they appear different from the norm, their unusual perspectives and behaviors, what they cannot do, what they do not understand. Assessment has become the measurement of their mistakes and how far they fall below expected developmental milestones.

A list of the child’s deficits tells us very little about how this particular child learns, how this child experiences the world, how this child’s developmental domains interact, or how, when, and where specific opportunities for growth exist.

It is not difficult to recognize differences, to identify developmental challenges, but mistakes are made in assuming that those challenges exist in isolation.

A child may have a language delay, but language does not exist independently of attention, memory, emotional regulation, social engagement, sensory processing, motivation, and motor planning. A child may struggle with motor coordination. But we must recognize that their movement influences exploration, social participation, learning, communication, confidence and self-esteem. A difficulty in one area may reflect disruptions in other areas and affect functioning and development in related developmental systems.

An Integrated Developmental Domains framework encourages caregivers, assessors, teachers and therapists to look beyond symptoms and examine interactions and relationships. Instead of focusing exclusively on what is delayed, Parallel Assessment seeks to understand how persons, environments and developmental domains influence one another, and how changes in one area may produce growth throughout the entire system. Even small changes in mediation and in the child’s wider environment can facilitate large changes in the child’s interpersonal interactions, in their learning and their development in all related areas.

System Disruptions

The image of development as a collection of independent domains leads professionals to view delays as isolated and independent deficits. Yet children rarely experience delays in this way. Developmental challenges and developmental progress reverberate throughout the child’s life because developmental domains are interconnected.

When a child has significant sensory processing difficulties, they may become overwhelmed by sounds, movements, textures, smells, tastes, or visual stimulation. Judging by how things appear, the child’s difficulties revolve primarily around innate sensory issues. Yet sensory experiences influence and are influenced by many factors, including the child’s emotional regulation.

Sensory issues and emotional regulation most likely influence the child’s attention. Sensory issues, emotional regulation and attention have a high likelihood of affecting the child’s problem-solving and learning. Ongoing mistakes and difficulties learning influence the child’s self-confidence. Confusion, difficulties learning, ongoing failures, anxieties and lack of confidence weaken the child’s motivation. Difficulties with cognition, emotion and motivation influence their receptive and expressive communication, their social participation and their play.

What begins as a sensory issue gradually affects nearly every aspect of the child’s development.

A similar pattern can be observed when first identifying communication delays. When children struggle to express their needs, intentions, feelings, or ideas, frustration increases. Social interactions become more difficult. Opportunities for learning decrease. Emotional regulation and the sharing of feelings, intentions, and instructions become more challenging. The child may withdraw from experiences that require communication. What first appears to be a communication difficulty is now better understood to be part of a larger interconnected developmental systems network.

Recognizing the wider interconnectedness and implications of the child’s development does not mean the child’s situation is more serious, or less amendable to improvement. Just the opposite. The better we recognize the weave of this child’s developmental tapestry, the better we understand the child, the better we can relate to the child, and the more we can connect with the child and support their progress.   

Positive Developmental Progressions are also Reciprocally Connected

Improvements in one area often create widespread developmental benefits. A child who becomes more successful communicating is likely to participate more socially. The right kinds of increasing participation may improve confidence. Greater confidence may encourage more interest and exploration. Increasing interest and exploration enhances learning and problem-solving. The child’s more integrated developmental system begins to reorganize around new possibilities.

Developmental delays are best understood not as isolated deficits but as disruptions within interactive systems. Assessment must move beyond identifying differences and weaknesses and strive to understand how developmental processes are currently organized and can become better interconnected.

Developmental growth becomes less about fixing isolated weaknesses and more about creating conditions that promote adaptive change throughout the entire system. Well-designed mediated interactions and interesting, meaningful activities strengthen the child’s communication, emotional regulation, confidence, attention, memory, enthusiasm, and learning all at once.

Neuroplasticity, Interconnectedness and Change

All areas of the brain are designed to be interconnected and integrated. Changes in one neural sub-system affect changes in many others, for better or for worse. The neurological connectedness of all parts of the brain, the nervous system, the body, and all biological systems is a foundational paradigm for the dynamic interconnectedness within and between the Parallel Assessment, Parallel Development, and Synontogeny frameworks of development.

Modern neuroscience provides strong evidence of interconnected neural network systems. And one of the most important and hopeful brain function discoveries has been that the human brain remains remarkably adaptable throughout life.

The concept of neuroplasticity has transformed our understanding of development. Rather than viewing the brain as a fixed structure whose capacities are predetermined, neuroplasticity demonstrates that neural systems continually reorganize themselves in response to experience and to learning. Every meaningful interaction, every successful problem solved, every new interpersonal relationship, every opportunity for exploration and learning contributes to global changes within the nervous system.

Changing interconnection and interconnectedness have enormous significance for the assessment and treatment of children with developmental delays and disabilities. Difficulties may be real, but they do not necessarily define or limit developmental potential. The brain remains capable of adaptation and change. Neural pathways can strengthen. New functions of mind can emerge. Alternative routes for learning can develop.

Neuroplasticity also reinforces the importance of relationships and experience. The brain does not change in isolation. Neural development occurs within social, emotional, sensory, cognitive and cultural contexts. Positive interactions, meaningful engagement, supportive relationships and successful learning experiences all contribute to neurological and developmental change.

The physical brain acts as a model for how human development works. Neurons and neuronal pathways do not work in isolation. They form complex, changing networks. Functional integration describes how brain regions work together to process information and effect responses. Functional systems require large-scale integrations of distributed neural networks and brain regions. Likewise, a child’s development, and an adult’s ongoing development, do not happen in isolated modules. Physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development are interconnected systems that constantly shape and support one another.

*The interconnected nature of brain, of mind and of consciousness is discussed at length in neuroscience, philosophy and AI under the general subject heading of “parallel modules of the global neuronal workspace theory of consciousness.”

Why Traditional Assessments Fall Short

Some traditional assessment procedures can provide useful information, but they do not capture the dynamic interconnected nature of development. Most traditional assessments offer snapshots. They measure isolated skills at a particular moment under specific and managed clinical conditions, not real-life environments, not within meaningful human relationships, and not within practical problem-solving during this child’s daily experiences.

Traditional psychological and educational assessments for children with neurodevelopmental delays tell us whether a child can perform certain tasks, often based on observations by family members, or by limited professional observations or opinions. They are based on office or clinic-based assessment tasks, verbal instructions or questioning, and quantified according to statistical evaluations regarding how the child’s isolated performances compare with normative, standardized expectations. Depending on the numbers, the child is categorized, labeled, referred, and placed.

Traditional assessments primarily focus on differences, limitations, and labeling. What these assessments fail to reveal is “Who is this whole integrated child?” “How can we better connect with this child?” “Specifically, how can we help this child connect interpersonally and learn how to learn?” “How can we learn to be better nurturers and mediators for this child?”

A standardized, quantitative test score may indicate a language delay but tell us little about how emotional regulation influences their communication. An assessment may identify attention difficulties without clarifying how sensory processing contributes to their attentional challenges. A standardized motor evaluation may reveal coordination difficulties but provide limited insight into how those difficulties affect social participation or problem solving.

The child is often reduced to a collection of separate measurements, or to one global score such as I.Q., whether or not it is valid for this child or useful.

Parallel Assessment is a response to these limitations. Rather than focusing solely on isolated skills, Parallel Assessment seeks to understand the relationships among developmental domains and between the child and their families and mediators. It examines strengths and challenges within the context of the child’s entire developmental system.

The central question should not be “What can the child do now?” but “How does this child learn, adapt, engage, communicate, and develop as a whole person?”

No single skill or developmental factor operates independently. Parallel Assessment is an ongoing process of discovery and interaction instead of classification, as though nothing will change or is capable of change.

The task of assessment is not merely to identify deficits but to understand patterns of interaction. We discover which factors will currently support their development and in the future, and which factors constrain their development, and how developmental processes influence one another over time.

Navigating Development

The GPPSP Framework

The practical structure for this process is provided by the GPPSP framework. Goals, Priorities, Prerequisites, Strategies, and Progress begins with goals because development requires direction. Goalshelp define where we hope to go and what meaningful outcomes we hope to achieve.

Once goals are established, priorities help determine which objectives require immediate attention. Not every challenge can be addressed simultaneously, and priorities allow mediators to focus their efforts where they currently may be most important and have the greatest impact, keeping in mind that priorities are frequently changing.

Prerequisites for learning and development need to be determined in relation to all goals because development builds upon foundations. Goals depend upon current states affected by earlier experiences, previous learning, built-up skills, understandings and conditions.

Strategies suggest the specific practical means and conditions through which development can proceed.

Progress is continually monitored so that goals, priorities, prerequisites and strategies can be revised as new information emerges and changes take place, or do not take place.

Like a GPS navigation system, GPPSP recognizes that child development is rarely linear. New information continually becomes available. Opportunities appear. Obstacles emerge. Routes, nurturing, mediation, and opportunities are revised. Understanding evolves for the child and for their adult mediators.

Assessment must be a continuous two-way process rather than a one- or two-time event. Not just at the beginning and at the end of a course or of treatment.

Enhancing Potential

Parallel Assessment has learned from Reuven Feuerstein to place its emphasis on potential. Parallel Assessment seeks to identify and support hidden strengths, motivations, interests, relationships, and how to enhance capacities in the child and in the adult mediator that can support broader development.

A child’s fascination with patterns or rhythms may become a pathway to communication. Building a trusting and enjoyable emotional connection with a caregiver may become a foundation for increasing engagement and broader social development.

Enjoyable learning activities designed for this child, just the right kind and amount of support, two-way sharing of the experiences, motivated collaboration, creating a sense of wonder and curiosity, ready persistence, humor, creativity, imagination, feelings of understanding, success and progress, belonging, kindness, purpose and responsibility may all become leverage points for growth.

Potential does not flourish in isolation. It grows within integrated systems.

The purpose of assessment is not merely to identify what is delayed. It is to discover what can become possible. By improving ongoing human interactions, shared activities and learning experiences between the child and their adult mediators, and by helping the child to build and integrate developmental domains, we learn not only where the child is today but also who the child will be capable of being tomorrow.

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