Special-education help for Ohio families.

Ohio Early Intervention (Help Me Grow, run by the Ohio Department of Children & Youth) gives free developmental evaluation and services — speech, occupational, physical, and developmental therapy — to any child birth to 3 with a delay or qualifying condition, anywhere in the state, delivered in your home. There is no income test to qualify and no diagnosis required. This is the single best first call for a baby or toddler.

Help Me Grow is delivered locally in every Ohio county — use Ohio Central Intake or call 1-800-755-GROW (4769) to be referred to the program serving your county. They come to you, and they will start the evaluation clock for you.

Ohio's federally funded Parent Training and Information Center gives free, one-to-one help understanding your rights, the evaluation (ETR), and the IEP/504 process — by trained parent mentors, many of whom raised a child with a disability themselves. Spanish-language support is available. Call before you pay any private advocate.

Housed at Ohio State, this center publishes plain-language family guides — including the Dyslexia Resource Guide for Ohio Families in text and audio in 11 languages — to help you understand evaluations, services, and your rights.

Ohio's federally mandated protection & advocacy agency provides free legal information and advocacy when a child's special-education rights are being denied — including help with disputes, restraint/seclusion, and discipline. A powerful no-cost resource before you hire a lawyer. Spanish-language assistance is available.

Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD) provides free help for students with disabilities starting at age 14 to prepare for work, college, and independent living — Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS), counseling, training, and assistive technology, plus the College2Careers program on many campuses. Through the Ohio Transition Support Partnership, an OOD counselor can join your child's transition IEP meetings.

Ohio's Department of Developmental Disabilities offers 1915(c) Medicaid waivers — Individual Options (IO), Level One, and SELF — that can pay for therapies, respite, behavioral support, and home services for a child with significant disabilities. Like the Katie Beckett pathway, eligibility for a child's own Medicaid is based on the child's needs and income, not the parents' income. There can be waiting lists, so the single most important move is to contact your County Board of Developmental Disabilities TODAY and get your child's name on every list and interest assessment.

Note: Ohio does not run a standalone Katie Beckett/TEFRA state-plan option — it uses the DD waivers above instead. For children already on Medicaid/CHIP, Ohio's Healthchek (EPSDT) benefit covers checkups and medically necessary speech, OT, and ABA — an immediate path to services while you wait on a waiver list.

You can ask your school district in writing for an evaluation (an Evaluation Team Report, or ETR) at any time. In Ohio the district has 30 days to either get your consent or send prior written notice. Once you sign consent, the district must complete the ETR within 60 calendar days, then hold an IEP meeting within 30 days if your child qualifies. Put the request in writing and date it — the clock starts then. You have the right to everything in your language, to bring anyone to the meeting, and to disagree.

Under IDEA you have the right to a free, appropriate public education (FAPE), to a full evaluation at no cost, to be an equal member of the IEP team, to an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) if you disagree, and to dispute-resolution (mediation/due process). Ohio's parent-rights booklet, 'Whose IDEA Is This?', explains it all — and your PTI above walks you through it for free.

The Ohio Department of Education & Workforce, through its Office for Exceptional Children, sets the special-education rules every district must follow, runs the complaint and due-process systems, and publishes Ohio's Dyslexia Guidebook (Ohio law now requires dyslexia screening and structured-literacy supports). Start here to know what the state requires of your school.

Use the ZIP finder to pull the nearest evaluators, therapists, and special-education schools to your address, plus your metro's full directory — and these statewide free programs are always shown, no matter how rural your county.

Several reputable practices provide autism/ADHD evaluation and speech/OT/ABA by telehealth across Ohio — vital for rural families. Nationally, COPAA (advocates/attorneys), the Academy of Orton-Gillingham (dyslexia), ABPP (board-certified evaluators), BHCOE (ABA), and Bookshare (free accessible books) round out your options.