Autism in Motion (AIM) Clinics first attracted attention in Chicago for its innovative approach to treating children with autism when it won first place and $45,000 at the University of Chicago’s Social New Venture Challenge.
The startup, founded by George Boghos, who was a Booth MBA candidate at the time, and Logan Pratt, a graduate of the Harris School at UChicago, has been growing steadily since May.
AIM Clinics' first and only autism clinic right outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, is now at full capacity, serving 24 children with autism. But soon, AIM plans to open two new locations in the state, another close to Little Rock and one in Fayetteville, Boghos said.
AIM Clinics sets up and operates clinics to provide autism therapy to children in rural communities throughout the U.S. AIM clinicians specialize in applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy, an evidence-based, data-intensive method that gives each child individualized care plans that cater to their needs, behaviors and skills. Therapists then measure patients’ progress on a daily basis, allowing them and caregivers to monitor it closely.
“There’s a lot of kids with autism, particularly in rural areas, that don’t really have access to effective therapy,” Boghos said. “This is a very, very intensive therapy, where on average, kids are receiving therapy for 15 hours a week, and it’s proven to really help the communication and socialization skills of kids with autism.”
Boghos said his team chose to open their first clinic in Arkansas because research showed that it was one of the states with the biggest need for an autism therapy clinic based on the number of prospective patients and lack of equipped healthcare facilities there. Additionally, Pratt had connections in the state, which helped them find and recruit therapists to work in the clinic.
Now, AIM Clinics, which is also one of Chicago Inno's 2018 50 on Fire honorees, employs 32 clinicians. Five of them are senior supervising clinicians, while the rest are junior-level therapists that actually do the one-on-one therapy with patients. The startup is also working on closing a “sizable” seed round of funding to help it open the new locations in Arkansas and expand to other states, including in rural areas of Illinois.
“[Chicago] is served relatively well by existing providers, but two hours away from Chicago, it starts to look a lot like Arkansas in terms of the dynamics and the access to therapy,” Boghos said.
Most of AIM’s patients pay for their services through their insurance plans, but Boghos said that for those who are uninsured, they can still receive education on ABA therapy through some of the startup's free community programs.
“Obviously not everybody is covered by insurance, so we do a lot of community and parent trainings for parents and kids with autism, where they can interact with our clinicians and learn some of the techniques of the therapy so they can implement it in the home themselves,” Boghos said.
Though he isn't personally affected by autism, Boghos said he wanted to launch AIM Clinics as a way to help provide early-childhood development services. Boghos, reflecting on his own childhood, remembers how helpful his teachers and other community members were to him when he emigrated to the U.S. at 12 years old from Syria and couldn’t speak a word of English.
“[AIM Clinics] is healthcare, but I also consider this education and early-childhood development, targeting the people who are most in need,” Boghos said. “Giving these kids a chance to develop, progress through school, potentially go to college and live productive lives really spoke to me given my childhood background.”
