Our pioneering, Neuroplasticity School model realizes the promise of the IDEA by unlocking and developing student gifts while giving them the skills they need for thought-leadership in college and beyond.

Cajal Academy is bringing specialized instruction into the 21st century, through a new educational model that capitalizes on the promise of new neuroscientific research that points the way to not just meet children’s unique profiles but grow them.

We’re calling this new model a Neuroplasticity School, because it is built on the well-established scientific principle of “neuroplasticity:” the reality that the human brain constantly rewires itself to increase the neural networks required to do the things we most frequently ask it to do.

Of course, this principle is at play in every school and in every task we do throughout our everyday lives. What makes Cajal Academy (and the future generation of schools we hope to inspire) different is that every aspect of our program is designed to drive this process, improving the neurocognitive infrastructure the student brings to learning and social-emotional experiences. We systematically re-examined all aspects of academic, social-emotional and physical education from the ground up through the lens of this sea change in scientific thought. Our Student Growth Catalysts employ a new, systematic and data-driven approach to identifying what granular level, “splinter skills” are impairing a child’s academic or life-lived experience, and then for building up those skills through a mix of traditional and novel therapeutic interventions. These are paired with instruction in the science of neuroplasticity and growth mindset coaching, to help the student develop a sense of agency over their experience and a toolbox for responding to future challenges.

The result is a comprehensive new model, in which the role of K-12 education isn’t just to teach students how to read, write and be kind to one another, but to optimize the neurocognitive and neurophysio infrastructure that determines their ability to learn and apply those skills, and that informs a student’s academic and life-lived experiences. This gives students with typical learning profiles a greater understanding of their strengths and challenges. For children with IEPs, our approach has proven successful in not just improving students’ access to the general education curriculum but in removing the disabilities that impaired that access in the first place.

Here are the two main components of our program; scroll down to learn more about the model behind it.

Our Vision to Voice Curriculum goes beyond CT state standards and develops the critical thinking, peer collaboration and executive function skills that innovative thinkers need to turn visions into voice and insights into action—preparing them for a future defined by their strengths

We engineered our program from the bottom up to give kids the “toolbox” they’ll need not just in college but in the future careers that are likely to be intellectually rewarding for these high potential kids. Every student’s program is individualized using their own unique Cajal Compass: a data-driven understanding of their strengths and weaknesses that provides a lodestar students can use to optimize their own learning and social-emotional experiences. We take this a step further for students whose learning, social-emotional, neurophysiological or chronic medical differences interfere with their access to their full gifts, with our ground-breaking, Catalyst Method reducing or even removing these challenges through a neurodevelopmental approach available only at Cajal.

For students who are not yet able to access their gifts, we create highly-individualized Catalysts that unlock students’ gifts through a research-backed approach that’s proving successful at reducing or even removing learning, attentional and social-emotional challenges that other schools can only accommodate—unlocking their potential for the future they want to lead

We’ve made a break-through for the field of special education, and it’s transforming student lives. For the last 30 years, neuroscientists have known that the human brain is constantly rewiring itself to do the things we most frequently ask it to do. We’ve developed a research-backed approach harnessing those insights, through highly-individualized neurodevelopmental approach that gets behind kids’ diagnostic labels to identify and enhance the specific neurocognitive and neurophysiological skills that drive those difficulties.

This goes beyond accommodating those difficulties to transforming the fundamentals of our students’ profiles themselves, increasing the number of settings where they can thrive and unlocking their academic and social-emotional potential for college and professional pursuits that are appropriate to their high intellectual abilities.

Find out how our ground-breaking Cajal Catalyst Method could transform your child’s profile.

Attend an Information Session to Learn More