{"id":93467,"date":"2026-01-22T10:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/93467\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T10:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:23:17","slug":"chop-opens-autism-therapy-centers-in-greater-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/93467\/","title":{"rendered":"CHOP opens autism therapy centers in Greater Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Expanding access to play-based therapy and intervention<\/p>\n<p>Specialists at these centers use the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autismspeaks.org\/early-start-denver-model-esdm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Early Start Denver Model<\/a>, which combines applied behavior analysis therapy, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chop.edu\/health-resources\/applied-behavior-analysis-aba-children-autism\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABA<\/a>, and child development strategies in a play-based format to help kids with social interaction, communication, motor skills and coping mechanisms.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasically, we engage with the child in a fun, play-based routine the same way that a mom or a dad or a caregiver would play with their child,\u201d said Dr. Ian Goldstein, co-founder and CEO at Soar. \u201cAnd then we teach the child skills like speech, language \u2014 whatever the skill may be \u2014 using ABA-based principles.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>A young child with autism may get, on average, between 15 and 30 hours of therapy per week for one or two years before graduating from the center and moving on to the school system, where they can ideally access other long-term support, Goldstein said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is meant to be an acceleration program to help children build skills at that time of life when their brain has its greatest neuroplasticity and capacity for change,\u201d he said.\n  <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-728751 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CHOP-Soar-autism-partnership-5.jpg\" alt=\"a CHOP-Soar Autism Center reception desk and play area in side by side photos\" width=\"3264\" height=\"1966\"  \/>The CHOP-Soar Autism Center in Newtown, Pa., which opened in January, is part of a new partnership between the health system and multistate autism care organization. Another four sites are scheduled to open in 2026. (Nicole Leonard\/WHYY)<\/p>\n<p>The CHOP-Soar centers will also coordinate children\u2019s care with other specialists in the area who can treat them for additional medical and psychological needs. This can be especially helpful for families who struggle to navigate these complexities on their own, Goldstein said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGetting the services in the first place is a hurdle, then trying to coordinate them for one child is very, very hard to do,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, having this partnership should allow us to really be able to collaborate for those kids who have higher-needs cases of autism.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expanding access to play-based therapy and intervention Specialists at these centers use the Early Start Denver Model, which&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7518,36313,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-93467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-chop","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","12":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}