A paradigm shift in how we understand student needs, which leads to actionable insights we can translate into student growth
At the heart of our program is a paradigm shift in how we understand children’s learning and social experiences and behaviors: a shift that leads to actionable insights we can use to propel student growth in a way that is not possible under traditional approaches to special needs.
Three core scientific principles drive this approach:
1) Each task we perform requires that we employ a mix of neurocognitive and neurophysiologic “splinter skills” simultaneously. Thus, a child’s ability to perform a given task will be impacted by their unique array of strengths and weaknesses across the myriad “splinter skills” that go into performing that task.
2) A child’s ability to access those skills at any given moment can be altered by any of a number of hidden, neurophysiologic events, ranging from sensory processing overload to immunological reactions.
3) Our ability to perform a given skill can also change over time, as the brain is constantly rewiring itself to increase the capacity to perform those skills we ask it to do the most.
A neuroscience-driven educational model
Taken together, these three principles have profound implications for how we think about the purpose and the opportunity of a K-12 education, leading to our unique Neuroplasticity School model. Here are some of the ways these understandings inform our program and the transformative results it has brought for our students:
Academically, we have developed a research-backed methodology for identifying and then enhancing the deficient neurocognitive and neurophysio skills through a ‘bottom up,’ neurodevelopmental approach, following our Student Growth Catalyst Methodology.
In the classroom, we gain the benefits of “embodied cognition” to increase learning retention and engagement by pairing academic learning with the strategic use of movement and sensory input.
Socially and emotionally, we use what we call the “Lens of the Not Yet Skills” to understand student social struggles and/or task avoidance as a reflection of the child’s current array of abilities, and to respond to behaviors in real time as an opportunity to improve the student’s understanding of their own profile and how it influences their learning and social experiences. At the same time, our social-emotional curriculum helps students understand the influence of their neuropsychological, sensory and neurophysio profiles on their social interactions, and how to use that information to foster the truly inclusive neurodiverse communities that they need to thrive.
Behaviorally, we respond in the moment through a flowcharting approach that models for students a process they can use to better understand the roles that their psychological motivations, neurophysiological reactions and “Not Yet Skills” play in their social choices, and learn how to interrupt those responses to select choices that better serve their social goals.
Use these links to learn more about this exciting educational breakthrough:
We go beyond accommodating the challenges posed by their complex profiles to transform the profiles themselves
Ground-breaking interventions reducing or even removing learning and in some cases executive function disabilities
We break learning tasks down into the discrete neurocognitive and neurophysio skills needed to perform them, and then rewire areas of relative inefficiency through neuroplasticity. This reduces the child’s educational costs across a K-12 lifetime: savings we pass on to you as their parent or sending school district, through our declining tuition model.
Personalized Social-Emotional Learning Programs
Our social-emotional programs start with an analysis of the data in the child’s profile to identify what areas of neurocognitive, regulatory and/or social skills are contributing to any observed social-emotional difficulties. Then we use an inter-disciplinary approach, integrated into the classroom, to move the needle for those challenges.
2. We teach students how to turn established neuroscientific principles into strategies they can use to chart their own future
We give students agency through physio strategies they can use to optimize their readiness to learn
We teach all our students personalized strategies they can use to leverage research-backed connections between the body and the brain to regulate and optimize their access to learning and social-emotional skills. For students with self-regulation challenges, this goes beyond improving resilience in the face of dysregulation (as therapies like CBT/DBT do) to improving regulation itself.
We foster an authentic growth mindset
We share the science of how our neuroplasticity interventions work, and the neuropsychology of their profiles, with our students, giving them a science-based reason to believe that they can in fact grow: the very foundation of a growth mindset.
3. We understand and respond to student behaviors in real time as reflecting their current mix of “Not Yet Skills” and their state of regulation in the moment, and collaborate with them to interrupt these processes through a neuropsychologically and trauma-informed approach
Understanding Behaviors
We use the data in each child’s profile to understand behavioral differences through “The Lens of the Not Yet Skills,” and then work to move those skills forward through our exclusive Neuroplasticity Interventions.
4. We maximize academic progress by applying the neuroscience behind body-brain connections in the classroom
Body-Informed Learning
We teach our students how they can use movement and sensory inputs to optimize access to learning: a powerful skill for the physically-intensive demands of college and the knowledge economy.
Data-driven Differentiation
We use the data in each child’s neuropsychological profile to tailor how we differentiate instruction to match their current strengths and weaknesses, and then fade those accommodations over time as their skill levels increase.
A break through for social-emotional supports within educational settings
Watch our webinar to learn more about our Neuro- and Trauma-Informed Approach, and how it differs from CBT/DBT, ABA and other social-emotional strategies
Neuropsychologist and Director of Research Steven Mattis, PhD, A.B.P.P., Co-Founder and Head of School Cheryl Viirand and Co-Founder and Director of Therapies Heather Edwards—Cajal Academy’s program architects—discuss the unique, Neuro- and Trauma-Informed Approach they created and pioneer at Cajal. This approach expands on the trauma-informed schools movement to integrate the neuroscience revealing how our neurophysiologic states impact our emotional, social and learning experiences. This powerful methodology offers exciting possibilities for mainstream environments, by unlocking social-emotional growth for students with autonomic regulatory difficulties, including PTSD but also sensory processing disorder, chronic medical conditions, thermoregulatory difficulties and more.
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