Cajal Academy is a full service program bringing innovative thinkers through the journey from unlocking their gifts to developing the skills they need to lead

People who naturally see the world differently require outsized critical thinking, social emotional and executive function skills to bring those ideas to life. Cajal Academy’s comprehensive approach meets students where they are and gives them the skills they will need as the innovative thinkers they’ll become, preparing them to thrive in college and beyond.

Each student’s program is highly individualized. We use the data in their neuropsychological and neurophysiological profiles to tailor academic instruction to their strengths and understand their social-emotional needs as reflecting the mix of strengths and challenges that they have today. But that’s not all. We pair this with customized “Student Growth Catalysts” that get behind the diagnostic labels to identify the specific skill weaknesses that drive those presentations, and then systematically enhance those skills through highly-specialized occupational and physical therapy treatments driving the process of neuroplasticity. While that work progresses, student growth is accelerated in the classroom through the strategic integration of sensory and motor input into learning, and coaching that fosters an authentic growth mindset and enhances students’ agency over their own learning and social-emotional experiences.

These highly-individualized programs come together through community-wide project-based learning challenges that develop the critical thinking, executive function and peer collaboration skills that are essential for innovative thinkers, while providing cohesion and a shared sense of purpose across the cohort.

The net result is a school unlike any other gifted, special education or mainstream school, and a paradigm shift in how we understand, empower and educate kids that could revolutionize the field of education.

Scroll down or use these links to learn more about our curriculum and our pioneering special education approach, and start your application today to find out if your child might benefit from this exciting program!

Our students develop critical thinking, executive function and social skills while collaborating together to solve real world problems

Our academic curriculum delivers Connecticut state standards, through multi-disciplinary deep dives following a consistent methodology based on design-thinking principles, providing transferable skills that are essential for turning their unique ways of seeing the world into reality. Each project requires students to integrate curriculum across math, science, social studies and language arts and then manifest their learnings through tangible products and deliverables ranging from documentary films to 3D builds.

This project-based learning approach is a core piece of our Vision-to-Voice Curriculum, which develops the super-sized skills that our cohort needs to develop the super-sized executive function and peer collaboration skills where exceptionally bright students often struggle—but that these innovative thinkers will need in college and as the adults they will become. In the process, they learn how to “bring their magic” to topics outside their interest areas: an essential life skill. Along the way, these cohort-wide projects bring our student body together, providing a shared sense of purpose that integrates even those students who may be far apart in age from their peers, or who require 1:1 instruction in one or more subjects due to meaningfully unique learning profiles or as they recover from prior school trauma. This is just one of the ways that we’ve put all the best principles of “gifted” education at the heart of our program, and made it available for all learners, all the time.

We develop the social and leadership skills that visionary thinkers require to lead in their chosen fields

Being someone who naturally sees the world in unique ways is a blessing, but without the peer collaboration and social communication skills required to communicate those ideas to others and to do so in a way that makes others want to follow them can turn into a curse. These are skills that all innovative thinkers need, and yet this is an area where many intellectually gifted students struggle.

All Cajal Academy students receive the Leadership Skills instruction within our Vision to Voice Curriculum, developing the peer collaboration, communication and social leadership skills required to give voice to your vision so others want to follow your leadership. For those students who have social or emotional challenges, we apply the same data-driven and neuroscientifically-based approach that we do to learning differences, through a Student Growth Catalyst. Use the links below to find out more about this scaffolded approach to social-emotional learning.

Our Student Growth Catalysts are like an IEP, but with a neurodevelopmental road map from where you are to where you want to be

Many of the students in our cohort of kids with high analytical reasoning and/or creative thinking skills have complex learning profiles. These may include learning, executive function, social-emotional, sensory, neurophysiological or chronic medical differences that interfere with their ability to access and enjoy those gifts.

For these students, we augment our general curriculum with a student “Catalyst:” a data-driven and multi-disciplinary program that meets students where they are, delivered by expert licensed therapies in the fields of neuropsychology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech and language pathology. Like a student’s IEP in public school settings, this program incorporates a mixture of services by licensed therapists, accommodations and academic differentiation, but unlike an IEP, each student’s Catalyst provides a roadmap for how to reduce or even remove those challenges, through a mix of traditional and Cajal-exclusive approaches, applying the well-established principle of neuroplasticity.

These programs are integrated directly into the project-based learning, social-emotional curriculum and agency and growth mindset coaching in our “Vision to Voice” curriculum, accelerating the pace of progress and helping them to find the courage to try things that have previously been hard for them. Use these links to learn more about these two primary components of our program.

No child should have to choose between academic challenge and the support they need to thrive.

All Cajal Academy programs integrate both stimulating academic programs and highly-personalized individual growth plans that leverage neuroplasticity to build up the skills they need to overcome any weaknesses in their otherwise strong neuropsychological and neurophysio profiles. Find out more about these core elements of our program below.

was founded on the premise that children can only fulfill their full human potential when they are given the opportunity to discover and experience their own gifts—and that this shouldn’t come at the cost of the expertise and support they need to overcome obstacles and have agency over their own life-lived experiences. Achieving this balance is especially important (and challenging!) for children having complex learning, social, sensory and/or neurological profiles. Our program is specifically-designed to meet these students’ needs, while leveraging modern neuroscientific research to address—not just accommodate—their differences, enabling them to thrive independently in the academic, social and professional settings of their own choosing.

Find out More About our Research-Backed and Neuroscience-Based Educational Approach

When we set out to start Cajal Academy, we gave ourselves permission to follow what neuroscientists know today about how children learn, socialize and grow, rather than recreating traditional models that have not proved effective for the exceptionally bright students with special needs who are at the heart of our cohort. Learn more about the principles behind this approach, and how it translates into a very different day-to-day experience for the students at Cajal.

Our Student Experience

Our Approach

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Our Results