The Roanoke Valley — the City of Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem, Vinton, and Botetourt — has real, credentialed help for kids with special needs, anchored by Carilion Children's at the Tanglewood center and a small set of strong local schools and clinics. Your local districts — Roanoke City, Roanoke County, and Salem City — each run special education. This is the Valley's own yellow pages of the best, most relevant help: named experts and clinics where we can verify them, ranked by real credentials (ABPP, BHCOE, Orton-Gillingham, COPAA, CCC-SLP, OTR-L, board-certification), never by reviews or who pays. In Virginia your free front door is the Infant & Toddler Connection of the Roanoke Valley (birth–3) and your school district's evaluation and IEP for ages 3+. Start there, then the best evaluators, schools, reading specialists, therapists, doctors, and advocates near you. Then, if you want it, an expert reads your child's records and builds your plan.
We don't rank by star ratings — they're noisy and easy to game. Every group below earns its place by credentials: board certification, school accreditation, professional licensure, and standing in the field's real professional bodies. The honest bar, not the loudest reviews.
For children birth to 3 with a developmental delay or a medical condition that can delay development, the Infant & Toddler Connection of the Roanoke Valley provides free evaluation and multidisciplinary early intervention — speech, occupational, and physical therapy, developmental services, and family coaching — for families in Roanoke, Salem, Vinton, and Botetourt and Craig counties, regardless of ability to pay. The earliest, no-barrier place to start.
Request a special-education evaluation in writing from your district — Roanoke City (rcps.info), Roanoke County (rcps.us), or Salem City (salem.k12.va.us). In Virginia the eligibility process — evaluation and the eligibility meeting — must be completed within 65 business days of the district receiving your request. This is the free legal route to an IEP under IDEA.
Virginia's federally mandated protection & advocacy agency — free legal information and advocacy when a child's special-education rights are denied. A powerful free resource before you pay anyone.
Carilion Children's Child Development clinic provides neurodevelopmental assessment and evaluation for suspected developmental disabilities and learning disorders — autism, ADHD, and developmental delay — the academic medical anchor of the Roanoke Valley and the referral for complex cases. The Carilion Children's Tanglewood center (4348 Electric Rd) unites pediatric specialties under one roof.
Use the Psychology Today 'testing & evaluation' directory filtered to Roanoke to find local psychologists who do childhood ADHD, autism-spectrum, and learning-disability testing — then verify the clinician is a licensed psychologist (ideally ABPP board-certified in clinical neuropsychology) and will join your school meeting. A vetted way to find local testing rather than trusting ads.
The American Board of Professional Psychology's directory lists clinicians who passed board certification in clinical neuropsychology — the credential to verify in any private evaluator across the Roanoke Valley, instead of trusting star ratings.
CrossWalk, the language-based learning program at North Cross School in Roanoke, uses the Orton-Gillingham approach to remediate dyslexia and other language-based learning differences while keeping students in a traditional classroom for part of the day. Its instructors are O-G certified or in training — the strongest dedicated dyslexia program in the Valley.
Roanoke County Public Schools serves students from age 2 through 21 with specialized special-education programs — autism support, behavior, and life skills — within an inclusion model. Roanoke City and Salem City run their own as well. In the Valley the strongest specialized placements are most often within the public districts; insist on the right program through the IEP process.
PEATC, Virginia's Parent Educational Advocacy Training Center, offers free help weighing options and pushing for the right program through the IEP process — on-demand trainings, fact sheets, and parent support for Roanoke Valley families deciding between district programs and a specialized school.
Virginia law requires every school division to have a reading specialist trained to advise on dyslexia and to provide evidence-based, structured-literacy intervention. Roanoke City, Roanoke County, and Salem must offer this free — request dyslexia screening and services in writing, and know your rights before paying for private tutoring.
The Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators lists accredited O-G practitioners — searchable near Roanoke, Salem, and Vinton. The gold-standard credential for a private dyslexia tutor, instead of trusting ads. (Insist on Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, or Barton — never Davis, Brain Gym, or vision therapy.)
A huge audiobook/highlighting library — free for students with a qualifying reading disability, so your child keeps up with grade-level books while they learn to decode.
The Center for Pediatric Therapies serves children with autism and a range of developmental and neurological needs in Roanoke, with CCC-SLP speech-language pathologists, OTR/L occupational therapists, physical therapists, and behavior specialists working together — a credentialed, multidisciplinary local clinic.
Mosaic's Roanoke clinic provides one-on-one, BCBA-led applied behavior analysis for children with autism, with Registered Behavior Technicians and individualized treatment plans (Compass and Dominion Care also provide ABA in the Valley). Ask about BHCOE accreditation when you compare ABA providers.
The BHCOE directory lists accredited ABA providers across the Roanoke Valley, ASHA ProFind lists CCC-SLP speech therapists, and AOTA lists OTR/L occupational therapists — searchable by zip so families in Roanoke, Salem, or Vinton find the nearest credentialed clinician.
Carilion Children's, the region's academic children's hospital, unites pediatric specialties — child development, behavioral health, speech, OT, and PT — at its Tanglewood center, with developmental evaluation for autism, ADHD, and developmental delay. The marquee medical anchor and referral for complex diagnoses in the Roanoke Valley.
The Virginia Tech Center for Autism Research (in nearby Roanoke/Blacksburg) publishes a Southwest Virginia & Greater Roanoke Valley autism resource guide and connects families to evaluation, research, and services — a trustworthy local academic resource for navigating an autism diagnosis.
The American Academy of Pediatrics' directory helps you find board-certified developmental-behavioral pediatricians serving the Roanoke Valley — the credential to verify for a formal autism or ADHD diagnosis.
The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates' directory lists active, vetted special-education advocates and attorneys serving Virginia and the Roanoke Valley — the field's real professional standard.
PEATC is Virginia's federally funded Parent Educational Advocacy Training Center — free help understanding your rights, evaluations, and the IEP process, with on-demand trainings and parent support groups. A respected statewide free resource before hiring a private advocate.
Virginia's protection & advocacy agency offers free legal information and advocacy for special-education rights — a no-cost first stop before hiring a private advocate or attorney.
For children birth to 3, the Infant & Toddler Connection of the Roanoke Valley provides free developmental evaluations and multidisciplinary early-intervention therapies for every eligible child regardless of ability to pay — the earliest, no-barrier place to start in the Valley.
Radford University's training clinic (a short drive from Roanoke) provides low-cost, sliding-scale speech-language and hearing evaluation and therapy, supervised by CCC-SLP faculty — an affordable option for Valley families who can't pay private rates.
The Virginia Tech Center for Autism Research's free Southwest Virginia & Greater Roanoke Valley resource guide maps low-cost evaluation, therapy, and family-support options across the region — a vetted starting point when funds are tight.
PEATC offers free help understanding evaluations, IEPs, and your rights — a no-cost first call for any Roanoke Valley family navigating special education.
Federally funded and free — they help Virginia families understand their rights, the IEP/504 process, evaluations, and meetings. A great first call.
Virginia's protection & advocacy agency — free legal-rights information and help if your child's rights are being denied.
A short message — your child, your Roanoke district, and what you're facing. We set up a secure way to share the IEP.
We review the records against your rights and match your child to the right Roanoke providers from the vetted directory above.
A clear written plan, plus a vetted Roanoke advocate, found and recommended for you, for the in-person help.
Free first reply with honest next steps. No pressure, no surprises — just an expert in your corner.
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