Jacksonville is the largest city by land area in the continental United States, and Duval County anchors a five-county Northeast Florida region that shares hospitals, a regional early-intervention program, and a regional disability-services office. Knowing which door to knock on first — and that several doors can be opened at once — saves families months.

This page lists those doors: the early-intervention referral line, each area school district's Child Find contact, two hospital-based autism evaluation programs plus a private self-pay option, and the state office that runs Florida's long waitlist for home and community-based Medicaid services.

Statewide programs, numbers, and rights are on the Florida page. This page adds the local entry points that are specific to Jacksonville metro (Duval County).

Early intervention under 3: Northeastern Early Steps (Florida's Part C early intervention)

Early Steps is Florida's early intervention system for children from birth to 36 months, and it costs families nothing to use. The Northeastern region is run out of the University of Florida College of Medicine — Jacksonville's Department of Pediatrics and covers Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Nassau, and St. Johns counties. Any adult — a parent, grandparent, pediatrician, or child care provider — can start a referral, and no diagnosis is required first. After a referral, the program screens or evaluates the child to determine eligibility and, if the child qualifies, writes an Individualized Family Support Plan describing the services the family will receive.

• Northeastern Early Steps (Florida's Part C early intervention)
• Referral phone: (904) 427-7600 (Northeastern Early Steps) · 1-800-218-0001 (statewide Early Steps referral line)

New to early intervention? Read the plain-language guide first.

School districts and special education

Florida's Child Find duty requires every district to locate, evaluate, and serve resident children with disabilities from birth through age 21, and the evaluation itself is free regardless of a family's insurance or income. Start with a written request to your child's school; Florida gives the district 60 school days from the date you sign consent to finish the evaluation. Families near the county lines that ring Duval have a choice of which district's process applies to them, so this page lists three of the largest school systems serving the Jacksonville area.

• Duval County Public Schools — the district reports serving more than 20,000 students with disabilities, birth through age 22, across 200-plus schools; Exceptional Education & Student Services (904) 348-7800
• Clay County District Schools — ESE Parent Services, 900 Walnut Street, Green Cove Springs; (904) 336-6500
• St. Johns County School District — ESE Department (904) 547-6037; the district documents at least two general-education interventions before a formal referral, per its own published process

IEP or 504 · If you disagree with the school

Evaluation and diagnosis pathways in Jacksonville

These are hospital and university programs with public intake information. Listing here is informational — it is not a recommendation, and it is not medical advice. Public school evaluation is free and does not require any of these.

• UF Health Jacksonville — Neurodevelopmental Disabilities — developmental and neurodevelopmental evaluation for children, including autism assessment, run through the University of Florida College of Medicine — Jacksonville's Department of Pediatrics · (904) 633-0750
• Wolfson Children's Hospital — Early Autism Intervention Program — a 16-week, Early Start Denver Model-based program for children 18 months to 4 years old who have or are at risk for a neurodevelopmental disorder, combining evaluation with early behavioral and play-based intervention · 904-346-0394 (Wolfson Rehabilitation — Southbank) · a physician referral is required before scheduling
• Hope Haven — private psychoeducational and neuropsychological evaluations, including autism assessment with eye-tracking technology, for children from 16 months old · (904) 346-5100 · no physician referral is required, but Hope Haven does not accept insurance — it publishes self-pay pricing of roughly $2,500 to $2,900 depending on the child's age, with financial assistance sometimes available

How assessment works · What to do while you wait

Disability services and waivers: Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) — Northeast Region

APD is Florida's state agency for long-term developmental-disability services, and it administers the iBudget Medicaid waiver that pays for home and community-based supports. The Northeast Region field office, based in Jacksonville, handles eligibility determination and waitlist registration for Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, and St. Johns counties. Once found eligible, a child is placed on the iBudget waitlist in one of seven priority categories; placement is set by the date the application was received, not by how urgent the need is, so families are encouraged to apply as soon as a disability is identified — a diagnosis does not need to be finalized first. A separate crisis-enrollment path exists for households facing homelessness, danger to the child or others, or a caregiver who can no longer provide safe care.

• Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) — Northeast Region
• Phone: (386) 238-4607

Local organizations that help Jacksonville families

• The Arc Jacksonville — long-running Duval County disability organization working with roughly 400 individuals and families daily; (904) 355-0155
• UF Health Jacksonville CARD — the regional Center for Autism and Related Disabilities; free parent training, functional behavioral assessment, support groups, and referral help for Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, and St. Johns counties; (904) 244-3056
• Child Guidance Center — Full Service Schools — on-campus counseling and family therapy run with Duval County Public Schools and United Way of Northeast Florida; served roughly 1,270 students in the 2025 fiscal year; ask your child's school guidance office about a referral
• Family Network on Disabilities of Florida — Parent to Parent — statewide parent-to-parent matching program that lists Duval among the counties it serves, even though its office is in Clearwater; (800) 825-5736
• Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens — Accessibility — certified sensory-inclusive since 2019; sensory bags with noise-canceling headphones and fidget tools are available at the Train Booth
• TOPSoccer — Jacksonville FC — free adapted soccer for players with disabilities, Sundays at Patton Park; contact through the club listing
• Special Olympics Florida — Northeast Region — regional office based in Jacksonville serving Duval, Clay, St. Johns, Nassau, Putnam, Flagler, and Volusia counties, with year-round training in more than a dozen sports

Documented waits and access notes

Wait times change. Each note below links to the public source it came from — confirm current status directly with the program.

• Reporting in April 2026 described Florida's statewide disability-services waitlist falling from roughly 20,000 to 16,000 people, but also found families who say they were wrongly removed from the list or had services cut off because of agency errors, while APD returned unspent funding to the state instead of using it to serve more people. (source)
• A University of South Florida research project tracking the iBudget waitlist found more than 22,000 people waiting as of January 2023, with many having waited more than ten years, and it breaks the list down by priority category. (source)
• A 2025 report to the Florida House Human Services Committee put the statewide iBudget waitlist above 21,000 people with an average wait of about 8.5 years for home-support services, and estimated roughly $1.2 billion would be needed to serve everyone currently waiting. (source)
• The Jacksonville Museum of Science & History runs weekly Sensory Hours on Wednesday afternoons with modified lighting and sound, plus a monthly Family Sensory Night with a dedicated sensory room, as part of a broader set of sensory-friendly options tracked by local news outlet News4JAX in April 2024. (source)
• The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began operating the Florida Spectrum Alert on June 24, 2026 — a rapid public-notification system, distinct from an Amber Alert, for a missing child under 18 reasonably believed to have autism spectrum disorder and to be in danger; Jacksonville-area residents can sign up through FDLE's missing-persons clearinghouse and are asked to call 911 with any information. (source)
• The Northeastern Early Steps program serving Duval County works against the same 45-day clock Florida reports meeting statewide, from referral to a completed evaluation and family plan. (source)
• Once a Duval County student is found eligible for exceptional student education, Florida rule requires the first IEP meeting within 30 calendar days of that eligibility decision. (source)