We don’t accommodate children’s educational profiles. We transform them.

Cajal Academy’s expert, visionary team has made a paradigm shift in how we understand children’s learning, social-emotional and neurophysio needs, and a second paradigm shift in what we do about it. The result is a research-backed, first-of-its-kind program that is bringing transformational changes that have not previously been thought possible.

These changes start with identifying and developing the specific neurocognitive and neurophysio skills that hold a child back—literally rewiring the brain to remove obstacles to their academic and social-emotional growth. This is paired with a systematic approach to developing growth mindset and agency, alongside coaching in how to self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate for their needs.

The results can be transformational, not just in school but in the community and at home. Scroll down to learn more about our students’ transformative changes.

Our research-backed, ground-breaking interventions remediate learning disabilities that other schools can only accommodate

Our research-backed, ground-breaking approach is proving successful at remediating learning disabilities that other schools can only accommodate, like dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, language processing disorders and some forms of ADHD.

Our expert team made a paradigm shift in how we understand learning disabilities, getting beneath the diagnostic labels they’re given to identify the specific neurocognitive deficits that drives them, using the data in each child’s profile. Then we made a second paradigm shift in how we treat them: we leverage the connections between the body and human learning to build up the child’s neural capacity to perform that skill (a process known as neuroplasticity) through a series of carefully-scaffolded movement.

The results are actual reductions or even complete remediation of learning disabilities that don’t respond to other techniques, often in one school year or less. Find out how our ground-breaking approach can redefine what’s possible for your child.

Personalized social-emotional learning gives kids real-time access to their social skills

Cajal’s exclusive social-emotional curriculum and approach fosters an authentic growth mindset, and turns social learning into social leadership. This transformative process works hand-in-hand with our work to remediate learning disabilities, and starts with the same deep dive to understand the data in their profiles and how that drives their social profiles. Disconnects in social cognition are addressed alongside coaching work helping students to understand—and gain agency over—their self-regulation and social needs.

Coaching in how to self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate leads to sustainable growth that transfers to home and the community

Our coaching model helps kids understanding and gain agency over sensory, neurophysio and even chronic medical conditions that variable influence a child’s ability to maintain “self-regulation.” When our students experience a moment of anxiety, frustration or inter-personal friction, we understand these as opportunities to help the student better understand their own profile and how it influences their learning and social-emotional experience. Over time, this gives them a sense of agency and fosters an authentic growth mindset, and the ability to access and apply their social understandings in real time, not just within our small school but at home and within the community at large. These tools arose out of our work as the first school in the world that is tailored to meet the complex needs of students with the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and has since empowered kids with a range of emotional and autonomic regulatory needs. Learn more about our unique, neuroscience-driven approach.

The principles and approach that eventually grew into the protocols, and then the model behind Cajal Academy was borne out of our co-founder’s journey herself and as a mother with the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. It therefore brings us great pride to be the first school (worldwide, from what we can tell) that is designed for kids with this and other, similarly complex conditions.

Transformational Change starts with a whole new way to define what problem they need our help to solve.

Each student’s program is a little bit different, and combines academic, social-emotional, physio and coaching elements in a carefully-balanced mix that is developed by looking at the data in that child’s neuropsychological and neurophysiological profiles. This process starts by looking at the challenges the child displays today within school, home and community settings, and then applying our team’s hyper-specialized expertise in the neurodevelopmental skills that are necessary to perform those tasks. Then our clinical team takes a “deep dive” into the child’s profile to assess their areas of relative strength and weakness, and based on that the specific neurocognitive deficiencies that are holding them back. Work to address these challenges through our exclusive Neuroplasticity Interventions is then combined with social-emotional skill development and Growth Mindset and Agency coaching to manifest those skill increases in sustainable growth that transfers across settings. Use the links below to learn more about this process.