For the girl who holds it together at school — and falls apart at home.
Girls with ASD, ADHD, and AuDHD are diagnosed later, misdiagnosed more often, and placed in settings that don't understand how their neurology actually presents. The Craig School does. TCS serves girls in grades 3–8 who are capable, complex, and exhausted from working twice as hard in an environment that was never built for them.
No pressure. No commitment. Just a real conversation about your daughter.
Now enrolling for 2026–27 - Grades 3-8 - Irvine, CA
Girls with ASD and ADHD are missed systematically.
If you've been searching for answers, here's why it's been so hard.
The clinical picture of ADHD and autism was built almost entirely on research conducted on boys. What it looks like in girls is different and most schools, most teachers, and even many clinicians aren't trained to recognize it.
Girls with ASD often don't look like the textbook presentation. They may be socially motivated in ways that mask their difficulties, mimicking social behavior they've studied and memorized, rather than naturally intuiting it. They hold themselves together in school environments with enormous effort, then dysregulate at home when the performance is finally over. They are described as "anxious," "sensitive," "perfectionistic," "too emotional"... words that describe the symptoms without understanding the source.
Girls with ADHD, similarly, often present as inattentive and internally distractible rather than hyperactive and externally disruptive. They may seem dreamy or slow to respond. They may get lost in their own thoughts in a way that's easily interpreted as not caring, when the reality is the opposite.
The result: girls who are clearly struggling are frequently told to try harder, see a therapist for anxiety, or simply outgrow it. And they don't because no one has identified what's actually happening.
Does this describe your daughter?
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Exhausted at the end of every school day in ways that don't make sense given what happened
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Performing adequately at school while struggling significantly at home - the gap between school-face and home-face is wide
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Social difficulties that look different from boys': exclusion, difficulty reading shifting friendships, emotional intensity in relationships
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Described by teachers as "anxious," "sensitive," "distracted," or "a pleasure to have in class", while you watch her fall apart every evening
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A recent diagnosis (or growing suspicion) of ASD, ADHD, or AuDHD that finally explains a lot, but doesn't tell you what to do next
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A feeling that traditional school is taking more out of her than it's giving back
She has been working harder than anyone knows. She deserves an environment that works as hard for her.
Built for the way neurodivergent girls actually learn.
Not the way boys were studied.
TCS was built around students with ADHD, ASD, and executive functioning challenges, which means it was built around the reality that these students include girls, and that girls' profiles are different. The structure, the social skills instruction, and the relationship-centered environment at TCS address what actually matters for neurodivergent girls, not a gender-neutral average of a clinical picture that was mostly built on boys.Explicit Social Skills. Every Day.
Social skills that match how girls navigate the social world.
5:1 Ratio
What It Means for Girls
Small groups that reduce the masking load equals energy to learn.
A Place Where They Belong
Often, the first place they've felt like they fit.
Academics Without the Hidden Tax
Academics that match what they're actually capable of.
Is TCS the right fit for your daughter? Here's the honest answer.
If your daughter was only recently diagnosed, or still hasn't been, that's common. And it doesn't change anything about whether TCS might be right for her.
The average age of ASD diagnosis in girls is significantly later than in boys. Many girls arrive at adolescence, or even adulthood, before anyone connects the pieces. The same is true for ADHD: girls with inattentive ADHD are frequently not identified until middle or high school, if at all.
A formal diagnosis is not required for admission to TCS. What we look for is functional fit: whether our environment, structured, small, explicit, consistent, is the right match for how your daughter learns and regulates. If she has been struggling in traditional school in ways that haven't been fully explained by the labels she has (or hasn't) received, that's enough to start a conversation.
We want the right match for your daughter, not just a seat. If TCS isn't the right fit, we'll tell you and we'll do our best to help you find what is.
Learning doesn't stop at the classroom door
Every other week, TCS students ride or explore the San Diego Creek Trail, right outside our building. This is not recess.
Our outdoor enrichment program uses structured movement and outdoor engagement to reinforce regulation, focus, and teamwork. For many girls with ASD and ADHD, movement and nature are genuine regulatory tools, not rewards or extras. TCS built a learning program around that reality, on the San Diego Creek Trail and Irvine Wildlife Sanctuary right outside our door.
It is intentional learning through movement.
"This school has given her confidence, academic growth, and a genuine sense of belonging."
Heather S. Miethe-Wong
TCS Parent
Student-to-Staff ratio in every classroom
Of UC Irvine research behind TCS model
Of TCS 8th graders successfully transition back to traditional school
The first step is just a conversation
Families of AuDHD students often come to us after navigating multiple professionals, multiple school placements, and a confusing mix of diagnoses that each explained part of the picture but none explained all of it. Our admissions process is a genuine conversation, not a screening. We want to understand the full picture of your child.
Tell us about your child
Fill out a short inquiry. It takes about three minutes. No formal application. No paperwork. Just the basics so we can have a real conversation.
We talk
An admissions conversation, not a test. You tell us what has and hasn't tell you honestly whether TCS is likely to be the right fit. No pressure in either direction.
Come see it
If there's a mutual sense of fit, we'll invite you and your child to visit the school. You'll see how the day flows. Your child will spend time in the classroom. We'll know more. So will you.
We move at your pace. No pressure.
This school understands and supports neurodivergent girls, who are so often overlooked or misunderstood in traditional settings."
Heather S. Miethe-Wong
TCS Parent
Questions from families of girls with ASD and ADHD.
"Doing fine" at school while dysregulating at home is one of the most common presentations of ASD and ADHD masking in girls. Fine at school often means working at capacity and leaving nothing in reserve. The academic performance may look acceptable while the emotional and regulatory cost is very high. If your daughter is consistently falling apart at home, that's information about the load the school environment is placing on her... even if teachers describe her as "doing well."
Possibly. Anxiety is one of the most common co-occurring presentations with ASD and ADHD in girls and it is also frequently a standalone diagnosis given when ASD hasn't yet been identified. TCS serves students whose learning and regulation are significantly affected by anxiety, particularly when that anxiety is related to the unpredictability, social complexity, or sensory demands of traditional school environments. If anxiety is the presenting picture but the underlying driver may be related to how she processes the school environment, we'd welcome a conversation.
Yes and AuDHD is a profile we see frequently. The combined challenges of ADHD and ASD create a specific picture: executive function difficulties layered on top of ASD-related sensory and social challenges. The TCS environment, structured, small, explicit, movement-integrated, addresses both simultaneously. See our AuDHD page for more detail.
Yes. TCS is a co-ed school. The student body includes both boys and girls with ADHD, ASD, and executive functioning challenges. The social skills instruction at TCS is designed to support the full range of social dynamics, including cross-gender peer relationships. Many families of girls find that being among peers who share similar profiles, regardless of gender, is far more significant than being in a gender-separated environment.
Yes. The admissions team is specifically attuned to how ASD and ADHD present in girls including the late diagnosis pattern, the masking dynamic, and the ways girls' social challenges differ from boys'. This is not a school that serves a generic student and happens to include girls. It is a school whose team understands the specific picture that brings many girls through the door.
Yes. TCS is certified by the California Department of Education as a Nonpublic School. Families with an active IEP may be eligible for district-funded placement. Our admissions team can explain how this process works.
Looking for grade-specific information?
Every grade at TCS is different in terms of what your child will be working on academically, socially, and developmentally. If you'd like to see copy and information specific to your child's current grade, select below.She's been working harder than anyone knows.
She deserves a school that was built for her.
Your daughter's struggles at school are not a character problem, an effort problem, or a discipline problem. They are almost certainly an environment problem, a mismatch between how she is wired and a system built around someone else.
TCS is a different system. One built around structure, explicit instruction, small groups, and the kind of consistent adult relationships that allow neurodivergent girls to stop performing and start learning.
The first step is a short inquiry and a real conversation. No commitment. No pressure. Just an honest look at whether this is the right place for your daughter.
Tell us about your daughter.