My Child Was Diagnosed With Autism. Now What? A 90-Day Plan

This week, ask your Regional Center to start intake, and attach your child's full diagnosis report. The Regional Center is California's agency for autism and similar disabilities, and intake is its first step. Your request is the first of five stages that end at your child's first plan meeting. As of October 2026, the law allows about three months for all five when the report settles the question. When the Regional Center runs its own tests, the law allows about seven. Your one job at every stage: ask in writing, and note the date.

The Regional Center serves people at any age, and it's the door to help at home. Your school district runs a second track beside it, on its own clock.

This week: ask the Regional Center and the school

Make two requests this week, one to your Regional Center and one to your school district, and put both in writing. A common wrong turn in the first month is telling the teacher about the diagnosis at pickup, then waiting. A word at pickup starts nothing. A dated email starts the clock.

Start with the Regional Center. Find yours by ZIP code with our Regional Center lookup. Call its intake line. Then send the same request by email or the Regional Center's online form, so the date is on record. If the Regional Center is new to you, here's what a Regional Center does for your family.

Then write to the school. Public schools serve children with disabilities from age 3 through 21, even before kindergarten. Email the principal, or your district's special education office if your child isn't in school yet.

Two more things this week. Ask whoever diagnosed your child for the full written report with the test results, not only a one-page letter. Then find your insurance card, plus your child's Medi-Cal card if they have one. The Regional Center will ask for copies, because it pays only for what insurance and other public programs won't.

If your child is under 3, ask the Regional Center for Early Start instead, its program for babies and toddlers. The stages below pick up as your child nears 3.

Weeks 1 to 3: the Regional Center intake

Fifteen working days. That's how long the law gives the Regional Center to do intake after you ask. At intake, an intake worker from the Regional Center talks with you and gathers your child's records. They also explain what the Regional Center and other programs offer.

The intake worker will ask about your child's early years, health, school or daycare, and what an ordinary day looks like. Parents tend to describe their child's best day. The intake worker needs an ordinary hard one. How long does getting dressed really take? How does bath time go? Which foods will your child eat?

Bring or send these:

• The full diagnosis report, with the test results.
• School or daycare reports, and the IEP if your child has one.
• Your insurance card and any Medi-Cal card.
• A short list of what your child can't do alone yet.

By the end of the 15 working days, the Regional Center has to tell you its next step. Since January 2025, it can decide right then, from the records, whether your child qualifies. If the records don't settle it, the Regional Center starts its own assessment instead. So the full report is worth chasing. It can cut up to four months off the wait.

Up to day 90: school testing and the IEP

Because the school works on its own clock, the IEP can be finished before the Regional Center is done. An IEP (Individualized Education Program) is the school's written plan for your child's learning. It lists the goals and the help the school will give.

Under California's special education rules, the school district has 15 days from your written request to send an assessment plan. That's a form listing the tests it wants to give. You get at least 15 days to decide. Once you sign, the school has 60 days to test your child and hold the IEP meeting. Sign the week the plan arrives, and the whole school track fits inside your first 90 days.

The IEP team includes you, a general education teacher and a special education teacher. Someone who can explain the test results comes too, along with a district staff member who can approve services. You can bring anyone who knows your child. The team will ask what you see at home, so bring your list of hard moments. Ask for the test results a few days early, so you're not reading them for the first time at the table.

If your child already has an IEP, email the school and ask for an IEP meeting to add the diagnosis. If your child is 22 or older, skip this stage.

Up to 4 months after intake: the Regional Center's assessment

The Regional Center's assessment is its own check of whether your child qualifies. The law gives it up to 120 days after intake, the longest wait in this plan. When a delay would put your child's health, safety or development at risk, the limit drops to 60 days. If that's your situation, say so in writing.

The assessment can be a review of the reports you sent, new testing by an evaluator the Regional Center chooses, or both. It can't start until you sign the forms that release your child's records. Send those back the day they arrive.

A diagnosis alone doesn't decide it. The Regional Center checks that the autism started before age 18 and will likely last. It also looks for big limits in at least three of these seven areas, compared with others the same age:

• Self-care. Dressing, bathing, eating, using the toilet.
• Talking and understanding.
• Learning.
• Moving around.
• Making choices and running their own day.
• Living on their own.
• Earning a living.

Our Regional Center eligibility guide covers who qualifies and who to call. When the assessment is done, the Regional Center tells you whether your child qualifies.

Within 60 days of a yes: the first plan meeting (IPP)

Bring a list of the hardest parts of your child's day to the first IPP meeting. The IPP (Individual Program Plan) is the Regional Center's written plan for your child. It lists the goals and every service the Regional Center will pay for. The law gives the Regional Center 60 days after its assessment to finish it.

Once your child qualifies, you get a service coordinator. That's the one person at the Regional Center who plans services with you and gets them approved. Your service coordinator comes to the meeting to write the plan with you. You can invite anyone you like, such as a partner, a grandparent or a friend. Expect questions about what matters to your child, what a normal day looks like, and what's hard.

Then ask for services by name. Two to name at this first meeting:

• Adaptive skills training. A professional comes to your home and teaches the everyday skills your child is stuck on. Think getting dressed, using the toilet, eating with the family or staying safe outside.
• Respite. A trained worker stays with your child for a few hours so you can rest.

No timeline shows the part that stays with you. While the paperwork moves, the daily teaching is still yours: the shoes, the bath, the meals, the bedtime. A goal written in the plan doesn't teach any of it. Someone has to teach each skill at home, the same way, every day, until your child can do it alone.

At home, the same way, every day: that's the work adaptive skills training takes on. The person who comes is a caring professional with a master's degree and 9.3 years of experience on average. They're matched to your child because they've already taught the same skills to others who found them hard. Your Regional Center pays, so your family pays $0. Find out whether adaptive skills training belongs in your child's first IPP.

Some parents leave adaptive skills training off this first plan. They're afraid it will trim their IHSS or respite time. It's one of the misconceptions we hear most often. It's also wrong: adding it lowers neither one. In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) is your county's program that pays someone for hands-on care at home. A state rule keeps Regional Center services out of the county's math when it sets those hours.

What happens after the first IPP

At the end of the first IPP meeting, you get a written list of the services everyone agreed on. It shows start dates and providers when they're known. Nothing on that list starts until you sign it.

The plan can change as your child does. You can ask for a new IPP meeting any time, and the Regional Center has 30 days to hold it. When your child's health or safety is at stake, it has 7 days. Otherwise the IPP gets reviewed at least once every three years.

This is also the time to set up the money side. Each program has its own application:

• Medi-Cal. California's public health coverage. Earn too much for it? Ask your service coordinator whether your child can get Medi-Cal through the Regional Center, without your income counted. Ways to apply.
• IHSS. Your county pays a worker for hands-on care at home. Your child needs Medi-Cal first, and then you apply at your county IHSS office. The state's IHSS page.
• SSI (Supplemental Security Income). A monthly payment from Social Security for people with disabilities and little income. Until 18, it counts the parents' income. From 18, it looks at your child's own. Social Security's page for children.

If it goes wrong: a long wait, a no, or no reply

When something goes wrong in these months, it's usually a missed date, a no, or silence. Each one has a next step, and every step goes in writing.

• No intake after 15 working days. Forward your first request to the intake line with one line on top: "I asked on [date]. When is our intake?"
• No answer 120 days after intake. Email the intake worker with your intake date, and ask when the decision is coming.
• A no. Ask the intake worker which records the decision used. Then send any they didn't have, like newer testing or the school's assessment. If your child is under 5, ask whether your child can qualify for now. Under 5, big limits in two areas can be enough.
• No IPP meeting 60 days after a yes. Email your service coordinator: "My child was found eligible on [date]. Please send me a date for our first IPP meeting."
• A service coordinator who doesn't answer. Send one request per email, and end it with a date to reply by. If that date passes, reply on the same thread and copy the coordinator's supervisor.
• A school that misses its 15 days. Email the principal and the district's special education office together, with your first letter attached.

Keep the school track moving whatever the Regional Center says. The IEP doesn't wait on the Regional Center's answer.

Questions parents actually ask