Customized Programs for Unique Learners
Highly-personalized, comprehensive programs to identify and address the challenges holding a child back
For students having needs requiring more customization beyond our Core Program and Learning Interventions, we create highly-personalized programs that comprehensively address the challenges holding a child back, using the data in their neuropsychological profiles and our exclusive, neuroscience-driven interventions. At the same time, even our most complex learners collaborate with peers on community-wide project-based learning with academic instruction differentiated to help them experience their strengths, with 1:1 instruction where needed.
At the same time, all our students, regardless of programming level, collaborate on community-wide project-based learning projects and enrichment programming, so “custom” doesn’t have to mean “isolated.”
A data-driven process for creating customized programs to reduce the challenges holding a child back—not just accommodate them.
We create highly-customized, holistic solutions to reduce the challenges holding complex learners back
Each child’s program will start with a deep dive to identify the challenges they need our help to solve, at a very granular level, led by our clinical team of expert diagnosticians. Once we have identified the challenges a child needs our help to solve, we create a custom-tailored program incorporating each of the core elements of our program, including neuroplasticity interventions to build up low-lying skills, personalized social-emotional programs, coaching in strategies personalized to their neurophysiological needs to increase self-regulation skills, and our movement- and sensory-enriched Body-Informed Learning pedagogy.
Our individualized programs come together though collaborative project-based learning, building key 21st century social skills
All students engage deeply with standards-based curriculum in ability-based classes ranging from 1:1 to 1:4. Then they work together to solve real world problems through multi-disciplinary deep dives that integrate the curriculum across content areas, grade levels and learning profiles. Support and instruction for social skills, self-regulation and executive function are integrated for all students. That way kids don’t have to choose between academic progress and learning how to learn and collaborate with other kids.
A continuum of programming levels that dials up and down as your child’s needs do
Students requiring custom programs are identified in our admissions process, through a full review of your child’s file and in-person interviews with you and your child to develop a program tailored to meet each of their unique needs. This may include students who have complex profiles with more than one area requiring special education, prior trauma, dysregulating neurophysiological factors, chronic medical conditions and other unique learning profiles. Student programs will be reviewed regularly to ensure that programming levels are tailored to address issues as they become apparent, and to meet your child’s growth as they progress through the program. Some students entering Cajal Academy with custom programs will be able to shift to a less intensive programming and tuition level over time.
Custom programs for complex learners, including intellectually-gifted students with multiple learning disabilities, specialized social-emotional needs and/or complex medical needs
As a non-profit dedicated to modernizing education, our goal is always to develop protocols leveraging what scientists know today about how kids learn, socialize and grow to remove obstacles holding a given child back—and then look for opportunities to expand those protocols to help more kids. Our work with complex learners is the well-spring of this work, as it is by designing for their needs that we create truly inclusive models that meet the needs of all students, so they can thrive within less restrictive environments. For these purposes, we have started with students who have very high analytical and/or creative thinking skills, as they have unique challenges and strengths that present powerful, untapped therapeutic opportunities.
With this in mind, we build custom programs in the following general categories:
Complex Learning Profiles
We create customized programs to address unique or multi-variant learning profiles, including students with uneven distributions of intelligence, students with multiple learning disabilities, and students with unique or rare learning profiles that are not well-described by currently-identified learning disabilities. Custom programs are developed by our multi-disciplinary team of expert diagnosticians and therapists to identify cross-cutting low-lying skills through neuroplasticity; provide instruction to the child in how to understand their learning profiles, use that knowledge to predict what tasks will be challenging for them and self-advocate for their needs; address resulting social-emotional needs; and differentiate academic instruction to present new content through their areas of intellectual strengths.
Tuition starts at $75,000, depending on the complexity of student needs.
Journeys Program
Our Journeys Program is for students requiring integrated programs to diagnose and address behaviors interfering with their access to academic and/or social experiences. Programs include self-regulation coaching through our exclusive Neuro- and Trauma-Informed Approach, social cognition instruction and other interventions, with flow-through supervision and cross-training for all team members by our neuropsychologist and PhD-level psychologist to embed therapeutic interventions into all classroom settings.
Tuition starts at $89,000, dependent upon the complexity of the child’s profile as a whole and any other special educational needs.
Medically-Complex Kids
We are proud to offer a first-of-its-kind program empowering students who have complex medical profiles with special instruction in how to independently self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate for their needs within educational and professional environments—while learning together with a community of other intellectually-gifted peers. Sample diagnoses include connective tissue disorders, major surgical rehabilitation, immunological dysregulation, dysautonomia and other complex needs.
Tuition starts at $69,000 depending on student needs.
Frequently Asked Questions About our Custom Programs
-
All custom program students must meet the admissions criteria applicable to all Cajal Academy students, including that they must have very high analytical and/or creative reasoning skills as evidenced as very high to superior scores on normed neuropsychological assessments of verbal, fluid and/or visual-spatial reasoning.
-
Tuition levels are set based on the programming needs and the anticipated costs of meeting them. In some cases, it may be possible for direct services with our occupational and physical therapists and with our school’s psychologist to be separately billed for submission to health insurance to help defray the costs; these determinations are made on a case-by-case basis.
Student programs will be reviewed regularly to ensure that programming levels are tailored to address issues as they become apparent, and to meet your child’s growth as they progress through the program. Should your child have significant needs that were either not identified or incorrectly represented in the admissions file, or should there by a significant change in their presentation, an additional fee may be required to support these needs.
Flexible tuition arrangements & affording a Cajal Academy education
Special education programs are costly, but there are a number of ways that families can get assistance, depending on their child’s needs and circumstances, including tax deductions, school district funding and flexible tuition payment schedules.