School Districts Information & Referrals

All Cajal Academy student programs are individualized using the data in their neuropsychological profiles and include goals and objectives, therapies and transparency regarding pricing, which is reduced as the student progresses in the program.

Where other special education programs work to reduce the barriers posed by learning and social-emotional disabilities, our ground-breaking approach reduces or even removes the disabilities themselves.

As this occurs, we reduce the student’s tuition, often by as much as $30,000 year on year as they shift into the next neurodevelopmental “Catalyst Stage.” Thus, while a student’s tuition may match those of our peer institutions in year 1, by the end of 2-3 years in our program some students (including ones who start Cajal with significant behavioral needs and multiple overlapping learning disabilities) will be ready to return to a general education population, dramatically reducing the costs of serving the child over the remainder of their K-12 lifetime. This brings our program within the statutory provision permitting contracting and cost reimbursement for schools that are either (a) state approved or (b) reduce costs relative to the public arrangement, while providing an appropriate and efficacious program.

We continue to evaluate whether these significant advances can be implemented under the regulations governing state-approved schools, as those regulations continue to shift in response to recent legislative activity. In the meantime, Cajal has not sought state approval at this time, in order to ensure that we can continue to provide this uniquely powerful service to families and school districts.

Learn more about our tuition model.

We are a full-service diagnostic, academic and treatment program for bright, gifted and twice exceptional kids with a wide-range of learning, social-emotional and neurophysio challenges. Our expert clinicians are experienced “IEE” evaluators and provide deeply integrated multidisciplinary analyses connecting the dots between the data in a child’s profile and their learning, social-emotional and behavioral profiles. These form the basis of our Student Growth Catalysts (the Cajal equivalent of an IEP) for students enrolling for the academic year at Cajal Academy.

Learn more about our admissions.

Our students have strong verbal comprehension, fluid reasoning and/or visual-spatial reasoning (WISC-V scores typically 88-99.9 percentile on one or more of the GAI skills). Many of our students have low processing speed, working memory and/or full scale IQ. Some but not all of our students excel academically, while others come to Cajal with academic delays, task avoidance and/or school refusal.

Many of our students have a learning, social-emotional or neurophysio difference, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, dysgraphia/dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, sensory processing disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and complex chronic medical conditions. Our students come to Cajal with a wide range of behavioral profiles (which tend to respond quickly to our protocols, allowing us to admit a diverse student body). All Cajal students desire to be part of a group, although they may not yet be good at doing so.

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As in the public schools, each student entering Cajal with an area of learning, social, emotional, neurophysiological, executive function or chronic medical differences has a highly individualized program, called a “Student Growth Catalyst.” These programs are like an IEP in that they are based on expert evaluations and contain a mix of therapies, accommodations and specialized instruction meeting the child where they are today to maximize access to academic and social learning. However, they are unlike an IEP in that they also contain a neurodevelopmental roadmap from where the child is today to where they want to be, through a mix of traditional and neurodevelopmental therapies that is monitored and seamlessly adapted by our expert licensed therapists.

This approach has yielded dramatic results with cross-setting improvements for students with even highly-complex learning and behavioral profiles, often in relatively short periods of time.

Learn about the Student Growth Catalysts at the heart of our ground-breaking special education approach.

Our academic curriculum presents Connecticut state standards, with mastery-based grading so that we can compress or expand curriculum as necessary to target areas of challenge while challenging areas of strength. All Cajal curriculum is presented through multi-disciplinary project-based learning units that develop the critical thinking, time- and project-management, executive function, peer collaboration and self-care skills, that are essential for innovative thinkers. This is an integral part of our our Vision-to-Voice Curriculum developing the skills that gifted thinkers will need in college and as the adults they will become, fostering the growth mindset and resilience needed to reduce long-term rates of anxiety, depression, social isolation and suicidal ideation in this population.

All instruction is differentiated in delivery and product to accommodate students’ special needs, while our clinical team works to reduce those challenges.

Cajal offers a more effective alternative to behavior management programs. We connect the dots between their neuropsychological, neurophysiological and psychological profiles through our Neuro- and Trauma-Informed Approach, rather than by managing the behaviors that they drive. With this approach, we have seen the complete cessation of even dramatic school-based behaviors within a matter of days or weeks. Parents often report changes at home as well, often in as little as a few weeks.

We are not an ABA program, as this and similar behavior management approaches tend to have paradoxical and even traumatizing effects in the cohort of students that we serve.

Learn more about our social-emotional approach.

Yes, and in some cases students will be able to transition back to a general education population, bringing significant savings to their school districts and families, potentially in as little as 1-2 years depending on the child’s profile. This is made possible by the fact that our program rewires the foundational skills driving student learning and social emotional deficits (based on which their diagnoses are made). As this occurs, many students experience a “hockey stick” shaped curve in their academic abilities as they are increasingly able to access and apply their gifts.

Learn more about our Student Growth Catalysts and the way they transform student profiles.

As with other trauma-informed schools, Cajal Academy is based on the premise that children must feel safe in order to learn. We have added to this neuroscientific understandings that in order to experience the emotional safety required to learn, one must be in a state of neurophysiological regulation. This understanding is then infused throughout our social-emotional and behavioral response, both as a toolbox for helping a student to attain better learning and social-emotional outcomes by improving their neurophysio regulation, and in helping us to collaboratively identify what problem the child needs our help to solve within a given situation. We call this approach, developed here at Cajal, a “Neuro- and Trauma-Informed Approach.”

Each student’s program is effectuated through expert clinical and diagnostic services that are integrated into the school environment itself and delivered by licensed therapists who are experienced independent expert evaluators and who have 10+ years of experience working with students in a range of educational, clinical and/or hospital settings and are each experienced independent expert evaluators. Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Sensory Integration Therapy, Visual Perceptual Therapy, Speech and Language Pathology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Psychological Counseling and specialized instruction in how to self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate for complex medical needs are seamlessly integrated with our academic programming through co-taught classes, cross-training for our educators and our unique, Body-Informed Learning pedagogy for teaching academic concepts through motor and sensory input, accelerating student learning while managing ADHD, sensory, anxiety and (for our students with chronic medical conditions) pain management and neurovascular needs. Our clinical treatment model has been developed under the auspices of our school’s psychologist and Director of Research, Steven Mattis, PhD, ABPP: a renowned neuropsychologist who has been recognized as one of the founding fathers of the field of clinical neuropsychology in the US who has authored over 80 peer-reviewed articles and medical textbook chapters, has been president and/or a Director for multiple international and national neuropsychological associations and has been a professor at multiple leading medical schools.

No. ABA therapy focuses primarily on altering the student’s response to a given situation in favor of a more appropriate response. Our Neuro- and Trauma-Informed approach leverages our students’ very high analytical reasoning skills by (1) providing them with a scientific understanding of their own profiles and how those profiles influence their learning and social-emotional experiences, (2) helping them to assess how their behaviors either help or hinder their desired social and academic goals and then (3) learn how to “drive a moment of choice” between their reactions and their responses. This approach is proving successful at bringing changes that transfer across settings, including for students with complex profiles, ASD, sensory processing challenges and autonomic dysfunctions from a variety of causes.

We have been granted Candidacy status by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and look forward to completing that process.

Yes. Our program is expressly designed to prepare our bright, gifted and profoundly gifted students to be independently successful in mainstream college environments, including where appropriate Ivy League environments, and our first graduate went on to study at RISD: the top college in his field. We engage our full academic and clinical team to support students in all aspects of the college process, from identifying potential future schools to doing the difficult emotional processing required to write a powerful college essay.

All of that being said, we support multiple pathways for students and understand that college is not always the correct path for all students. We are committed to supporting our students on whatever pathway is most meaningful and appropriate for them. 

Cajal Academy is a “gifted-all-the-time” educational program. Our project-based learning, curriculum differentiation and social-emotional curriculum are all tailored to the strengths, and the challenges, that gifted learners bring to the table. However, there are lots of different types of giftedness, and many of our most brilliant students have not tended to be academically successful in other environments. Our Neuro- and Trauma-Informed methodology allows us to reduce interference from students’ “Not Yet Skills” while we work to build up those capacities, clearing the way for them to better access and further develop their gifts. Prior designation of giftedness is not required for our program, and atypical student profiles including students not presenting as gifted but with learning, mood regulation and/or medical conditions that in our experience impair access to student gifts will be considered even where cognitive scores may be lower.

Yes. Our curriculum is aligned to Connecticut state standards appropriate to the child’s grade level or, where they are either accelerated or behind in a given subject, based on their ability level. Curriculum is delivered in ability-based groupings, however curriculum units are aligned across the curriculum to correlate to school-wide project based learning units that are specifically tailored to foster the strengths and meet the special education needs of our students’ very high analytical abilities. Each project follows a standardized design process, fostering development of executive function, social collaboration and critical thinking skills that transfer across settings and disciplines. All curriculum is differentiated to enable students to access their high analytical skills, by reducing demand for neurocognitive skills that are areas of relative weakness.

All of our teachers have extensive teaching experiences and/or masters or PhDs in their fields of expertise. We have found that for the gifted and in some cases profoundly gifted students we serve, all of whom have high analytical abilities, the most essential qualifications are that educators must have extremely high analytical abilities themselves, paired with deep subject matter expertise. In our experience, teachers who have been trained, certified and experienced in traditional educational environments have a more challenging and extended learning curve for adopting the neuropsychology-driven methodology for understanding students’ social-emotional needs and content differentiation that are at the core of our program, however we continue to look for educators that are able to bring both qualifications to their work.

Our students have a very wide array of special needs, providing a rich diversity of experiences that benefits all our students, and a home for students having even the most complex overlapping diagnoses and/or who are considered to be “in a cohort of one.”

Common learning and social-emotional difficulties represented in our student body include ADHD, sensory processing disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, fine and/or gross motor coordination disorders, social cognition challenges, ASD, anxiety, depression, task avoidance, school refusal and more.

We also support students having chronic medical conditions. We are proud to be the first school in the world that offers specialized instruction empowering students with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and its common comorbidities, including POTs, dysautonomia, mast cell activation syndrome, chronic pain and chronic fatigue syndromes.

All applicants must have a recent neuropsychological or psycho-educational assessment, including standardized intelligence testing. Any additional OT, PT, SLP or other testing that is available for the child should also be provided. Our team looks at the data in these evaluations for indications of exceptional verbal comprehension, fluid reasoning and/or visual-spatial abilities. Typically one or more of these scores will in the 88th to 99.9th percentile, however lower scores may be considered where the child has diagnoses (including but not limited to certain language processing difficulties, mood disorders and chronic medical conditions) known to our clinicians to suppress these scores.

Cajal Academy does not consider full scale IQ and we do not require prior designation as “gifted.” Many of our students have low working memory and/or processing speed, and this does not bar admissions.

Yes and no, depending on how you are defining “Therapeutic School.” We provide expert services delivered by licensed therapists, through a treatment model that is deeply integrated across the program, supporting the wide range of learning, social, emotional and neurophysio needs of students with high intellectual abilities.

We are not a behavior management school. Some but not all of our students have significant emotional difficulties, and we have been very successful at helping these students to learn how to understand and self-manage those needs in a sustainable manner that transfers across settings.

Many twice exceptional students develop maladaptive behaviors, including defiance, task avoidance, school refusal and social behaviors that are not pro-social as a way to protect themselves emotionally. We understand these behaviors as indicative of hypervigilance to the possibility of failure, which is very common among kids with the jagged profiles and/or uneven distributions of intelligence that are common among “2e” kids. We address these differences by helping students to understand their own profiles, and the ways that they are influencing their learning and social behaviors. This leads to cross-setting changes reported by our parents often in as little as 4-6 weeks.

Cajal is not a behavior management school and does not follow ABA precepts. We are not an appropriate setting for students with a history of physical aggression towards staff or peers.

Our cohort of students spans a wide age range by design, for a number of reasons. First, it has been widely acknowledged that twice exceptional students tend to form kinships more easily with kids who are older or younger than themselves than with kids their own age. We find that our older students benefit from having the opportunity to lead, teach and mentor their younger peers, who in turn benefit from having older role models.

Academically, our students learn standards-based instruction within ability-based groupings. Some of our students may be several grade levels ahead in one subject and multiple grade levels behind in another, so having a mixed age cohort offers greater opportunities to learn with an appropriate learning peer.

School districts and professionals considering making a referral to Cajal Academy should contact our Head of School, Cheryl Viirand. We encourage you and any interested parents to attend one of our Information Sessions to learn about our unique programming approach and the science behind it. We are also happy to schedule a Zoom meeting or accommodate you for a tour so that you can learn more about our program.

Our admissions process for all applicants begins with a Parent Application, as this provides soft markers that are essential for us to evaluate their appropriateness for our unique clinical process. We also require that all prior evaluations and any 504 or IEP be shared with us at this stage, however our clinicians are experienced independent evaluation experts and thus we can also provide the relevant testing to determine admissions eligibility, for an increased application fee.

Students who may be an appropriate fit for our program are invited to spend a day on-campus with our current cohort. This is a 9:15-3 pm drop off experience, although alternative approaches can be discussed for students with medical, prior trauma or other mitigating circumstances. During that day, they will have 1:1 screenings with our neuropsychologist, one of our physio therapists and our math and ELA teachers. They will also have the opportunity to attend classes with current students to get a “shadow day” experience of the program. All parents/guardians actively involved in raising the child are asked to return at 1:30 pm to meet with our Head of School and Neuropsychologist, although only one representative needs to be in person.

Admissions decisions are returned within a few days of the on-site interview. Where a family desires to proceed, our clinicians develop the child’s program over the 7-10 days that follow and set the child’s tuition accordingly; we do our best to accelerate this time frame for families seeking immediate placements.

Questions regarding our Admissions Process should be directed to our

Yes. Our program is expressly designed to prepare our bright, gifted and profoundly gifted students to be independently successful in mainstream college environments, including where appropriate Ivy League environments. That said, said, we support multiple pathways for students and understand that college is not always the correct path for all students. We are committed to supporting our students on whatever pathway is most meaningful and appropriate for them. 

Cajal is eager to work with school districts and the CSDE to share our methodologies and to support Connecticut school children, and continues to evaluate whether state approval is the right mechanism to do so. We are mindful that the CSDE has been charged with reexamining state approval standards and are hopeful that the new standards will support much needed special education innovation that applies neuroplasticity to reduce or remove disabilities, rather than locking special education private schools into the traditional, accommodations-based approach.

By developing a new blueprint that instead applies neuroplasticity to reduce or even remove those disabilities, our program reduces the costs of educating the child over their K-12 educational lifetime—cost-reductions that we pass on to school districts through our declining tuitions model, thus bringing our program within the second statutory grounds for direct school district contracting and funds in many cases. Those savings may be realized over the course of 1-2 school years or it make take more, depending on the child’s profile. In some cases, students will be able to return to the general education population of a mainstream environment, ready to perform at the high potential of our intellectually-gifted population.

Typically speaking, our student tuitions remain the same or decrease from year to year, as work progresses to rebuild the foundational skills that drive a child’s academic and/or social-emotional challenges. Each child’s tuition is re-evaluated at the end of each academic year and is reduced as the child achieves the clinical metrics that are relevant to move to the next “Stage” in our Catalyst process. Over time, the Catalyst is removed altogether, and the child is invite to reenroll at Cajal at just our base tuition of $47,500 to fully develop the college-readiness skills that are essential for intellectually-gifted students in college and beyond, or they may transition to a public school environment with a significantly less complex or even a general education profile.

All student tuitions are reevaluated, and typically remain the same or are reduced, at the end of each academic year. There are 2 parts to our tuition. All students enroll at Cajal Academy at our standard Tuition fee of $47,500, encompassing our ‘gifted-all-the-time’ general ed curriculum and leadership skills. Those students who are not yet able to fully access and enjoy their gifts, whether due to a learning, social-emotional, neurophysio or chronic medical reason, will also have an add-on fee, calculated on an annual basis, for the Student Growth Catalyst that is required to support their progress towards the next stage of their journey. This fee is customized to reflect the complexity of the differentiation, staffing and accommodations required to give the child academic and social-emotional access with their presenting challenges, and the clinical work required to reduce or remove those barriers by rebuilding the skills with which they approach those tasks. Student Growth Catalysts fall into one of four stages reflecting the neurodevelopmental and psycho-social work involved.

This cost is reevaluated at the end of each academic year and reduced as student abilities increase with the shifts to less intensive stages, until it is removed altogether. These Catalysts are calculated on an “all-in” basis, and include the evaluations, assessments, direct therapy sessions, inter-disciplinary collaboration and analysis required to implement the approach.

You can learn more about our declining tuitions model and tuition ranges here.

Yes, our tuitions include the costs of all therapies. Parents are discouraged from seeking additional tutoring or therapy services outside of school in order to avoid conflicting treatment approaches. The exception to this is that families are encouraged to continue outside counseling services, with whom our psychologist can collaborate on matters unrelated to the child’s in-school functioning and growth. 

Part of the effectiveness of our program comes from the fact that therapeutic services (including self regulation, social skills, executive function, gross and fine motor, visual perceptual, etc.) are, wherever possible, integrated into classroom activities and settings, helping the student to generalize those skills. These are quintessentially multi-disciplinary efforts, requiring significant cross-training and collaboration among the various clinicians who are working with the child, and the mix of therapeutic, academic and social programming is adjusted over the course of the child’s program, as they respond to the interventions. For these reasons, it is not possible for us to separate out the therapeutic service costs.

Our facility is just a 10 minute walk from the South Norwalk Train Station, which is at the intersection of the branch and main lines. This opens up public transportation options from New York City to New Haven, throughout Westchester County and up into Ridgefield and Danbury. Many of our teens have traditionally traveled by rail, and many of our students have commutes as long as 2 hours each way. We do not offer transportation ourselves, although we are happy to put families in touch with those vendors who contact us offering that service.