Our Catalyst Method brings kids on a continuous journey from where they are to where they want to be

All Cajal Academy students have high analytical reasoning and/or creative thinking skills. Many have complex learning profiles, which may include learning, executive function, social-emotional, sensory, neurophysiological or chronic medical conditions that may interfere with their ability to access those gifts. What they all have in common is that they connect the dots differently.

Cajal Academy was purpose-built to empower these kids to thrive academically, socially and emotionally in college and as the adults that they will become. All students engage with our Voice to Vision curriculum, which fosters the executive function, peer collaboration and critical thinking skills that people who see the world differently need to realize those visions.

For those students whose learning, social-emotional and/or physio differences interfere with their ability to access those gifts, we create highly-individualized programs implementing the Cajal Catalyst Method. This research-backed approach is a paradigm shift in special education, from accommodating and making up the gaps between your diagnosed disabilities and ‘mainstream’ expectations, to actually increasing your abilities so that the gap itself is removed—giving our cohort of analytical super-thinkers the opportunity to achieve the extraordinary.

This process is a journey, and students enter Cajal with a wide array of diagnoses and at all stages along the way. Our Catalyst Method meets them where they are and progresses them towards the next stage through a research-backed, neurodevelopmental process delivered by expert licensed therapies in the fields of neuropsychology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech and language pathology. This work is integrated directly into the academic environment, with Growth Mindset Coaching helping them to understand their shifting neuropsychological profile, and to use this information to find the courage to try things that have previously been hard for them.

As student profiles shift, their Catalyst is faded and the focus of their program shifts to making these skills more resilient and further developing their strengths through the Vision to Voice 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. 

Tuition levels for students in our Catalyst program are set in the admissions process, based on our analysis of at what stage this child is joining our program and the complexity of both the neurodevelopmental work and the programming accommodations and collaboration required to ensure their academic and social-emotional growth while that work proceeds. These costs are reduced as the child shifts to the next stage in the process.

Find out more about the developmental stages and continuum of service levels within our student Catalysts below.