How we develop Catalysts to Student Growth
We use the data in each student’s profile—not the diagnostic labels used to describe them—to develop neuroscience-based interventions that reduce or even remove learning and in some cases social-emotional disabilities.
Read below to learn how we develop these ground-breaking programs, or learn more about the science behind how this works here.
Step 1: Identifying what problem this child needs our help to solve
Getting beyond the labels to understand the “why” behind them
Starting in the admissions process, we connect the dots between learning and/or social-emotional strengths and challenges noted by the student’s parents; diagnoses such as ADHD, dyslexia, delays in reading or written expression and social difficulties; and the data in any evaluations or assessments that the child has had to date.
What emerges is a picture of the child’s life-lived experiences, and a roadmap to how these experiences tie back to their underlying neuropsychological and neurophysiological profiles.
The Cajal Compass: a lodestar for the differentiation required to help a child experience their strengths
Once we understand the child’s challenges and how they intersect to inform their learning, social, emotional and physical experiences, we develop their “Compass”: an inventory of the challenges that must be navigated as of this stage of their development in order to give them access to and experience their gifts. Our teachers are trained in how to use this integrated picture of the child’s needs across the disparate areas of their profiles to differentiate task demands and instruction to minimize interference from the child’s “Not Yet Skills” while our clinicians work to build up those skills.
Step 2: Developing a comprehensive CATALYST to propel the child from where they are to where they want to be
Each student’s “Catalyst” is a multi-disciplinary treatment plan rebuilding these skills from the bottom up
With this multi-layered and data-driven understanding of the child’s current strengths and weaknesses and how that is currently affecting them in the classroom, socially and in their daily living, we create expert “Catalyst” programs increasing their access and enjoyment of their gifts. 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.
Classroom instruction is differentiated and accommodations are provided to reduce interference from the child’s Not Yet Skills while they progress, however they are faded out as the child’s capacity to perform those skills is increased—thus increasing the number of settings and pursuits where they will be able to feel successful.
You can learn more about common components of a “Catalyst” with the links below.
Neuroplasticity Interventions Reducing Learning Disabilities
Personalized Social-Emotional Learning
Improving Self-regulation and Cognitive Access
Growth Mindset Coaching
Step 3: Integrating the CATALYST into all aspects of the student’s program, giving them agency and ownership that transfers across settings
Accommodations, instruction & social support
The data, understandings and strategies developed through our Catalyst Method are integrated into all aspects of the student’s program, including academic differentiation, executive function and peer collaboration supports for our project-based learning endeavors and our Agency and Growth Mindset Coaching. This helps students generalize their strategies in a way that translates into independence and transference across settings.
A continuous journey towards unlocking their gifts
We recognize that all these students have the ability to turn their unique ways of seeing things into innovations that can benefit us all—and that developing those skills is a journey. Students enter Cajal with a wide array of diagnoses and at all stages in this process, from building neural networks to integrating refined splinter skills. We’ve made a paradigm shift in how we understand students’ special needs, opening up new avenues for how we can remove—not just accommodate—them.
As new abilities evolve, accommodations are removed, tuition levels are reduced and the work shifts to making these skills more resilient and further developing their strengths through the Voice to Visions Curriculum at the heart of our program for all learners. Students who stay on at Cajal through graduation and our Sr Capstone Project leapfrog from learning to keep up with their mainstream peers to ready to independently thrive socially and academically in college, with the tools and essential life skills they need to turn their visions into leadership in their chosen fields down the road.