Each child receives one hour (2 x 30 minutes) of speech and language therapy, one-half hour of music therapy, and one hour (2 x 30 minutes) of occupational therapy each week. Therapies are delivered in a blended model — in therapy rooms, the OT gym and in the classroom. This approach helps children generalize their goals to a variety of settings, and it promotes the transdisciplinary implementation of goals by the child’s collaborative team. With this approach, teachers are empowered to use and implement speech and language interventions, occupational therapy strategies or music therapy techniques, over the course of the school day and week, so that the therapeutic interventions can be given frequently and in natural contexts.

Understanding that all learning needs to be functional and contextualized, the STARS classroom uses a play-based curriculum as a foundation for embedding the goals of each child’s unique education program into the daily routines and activities of the preschool day. Partnering with families, each child’s team develops and revises this plan according to the child’s growth and needs.

To support the child’s ongoing self-regulation, the STARS teams support children to expand their sensory-regulating and social-emotional learning. For children who benefit from discrete trial training, the classroom teachers can target skills and learning by integrating discrete trial work as one component of the fuller individual educational programs.

Individualized Education Programs are developed and revised annually to include current levels and goals in a variety of domains:

• Cognitive and pre-academic
• Language and communication
• Social-emotional development, including play skills and learning readiness skills
• Self-help skills, including toileting, brushing teeth, eating and hygiene
• Fine and gross motor
• The preschool program also includes gym, music, Shabbat and Jewish Holidays, and swimming during the summer months

Finally, the inclusion of children in BAS preschool classrooms is developed and implemented through coordination and team planning. Each child’s schedule is designed to facilitate an expansion of the skills and goals identified in the Individualized Education Program.

Inclusion is an evidence-based practice and is implemented to promote the generalization of skills into everyday routines and natural contexts. Although it is a recommended practice, backed by research and promoted by our professional organizations, the Karol Musher STARS program is one of the only programs in Houston that embraces and utilizes inclusion in early childhood instructional programming. Unlike mainstreaming, where children are placed in classrooms with little or no support or modifications, inclusion emphasizes the support, access, and participation of students in the preschool classroom so that children are actively supported by STARS staff as they practice skills and develop abilities alongside peers.

Graduates of our program have gone on to kindergartens in both traditional and special education settings; we supply families transitioning to kindergarten with helpful information about their child so they can make knowledgeable choices about an ongoing placement.