Dayton families work within Montgomery County's disability-services system: Dayton Public Schools and neighboring Centerville City Schools each publish their own Child Find contacts, Dayton Children's Hospital runs a dedicated autism diagnostic clinic, and Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities Services is the county's gateway to long-term Medicaid waiver support.

This page lists the doors that are open to Dayton and Montgomery County families right now, with a phone number, the source, and the date each fact was checked.

Statewide programs, numbers, and rights are on the Ohio page. This page adds the local entry points that are specific to Dayton metro (Montgomery County).

Early intervention under 3: Ohio Early Intervention (statewide Help Me Grow referral system)

Ohio Early Intervention covers children under 3 with a developmental delay or a disability. The referral doesn't have to come from a parent — relatives, physicians, and child care providers can all start it — and nobody needs a diagnosis in hand to do so. Call the statewide intake line or refer online, and a coordinator connects your family to the program serving Montgomery County; evaluation and the resulting family service plan are free. Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities Services separately describes helping infants and toddlers 'reach their potential' from birth to age 3 among its own programs.

• Ohio Early Intervention (statewide Help Me Grow referral system)
• Referral phone: 1-800-755-4769

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

School districts and special education

Montgomery County districts, including Dayton Public Schools and Centerville City Schools, carry Ohio's statewide Child Find duty: locate and evaluate children with suspected disabilities from birth through 21, free of charge. A written request to the district or its Office for Exceptional Children starts the process — 30 calendar days to secure consent or explain in writing why it will not evaluate, then 60 calendar days from consent for an evaluation team, including parents, teachers, and a school psychologist, to complete its report.

• Dayton Public Schools — Office for Exceptional Children: (937) 542-3353, 136 S. Ludlow Street
• Centerville City Schools — Director of Special Education: 937-433-8841

IEP or 504 · If you disagree with the school

Evaluation and diagnosis pathways in Dayton

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.

• Dayton Children's Hospital — Autism Diagnostic Clinic — diagnostic evaluation for children 18 months up to their 4th birthday, inside the hospital's Developmental Pediatrics service; a pediatrician referral and an online questionnaire come first, then a roughly two-hour team evaluation with a developmental pediatrician and a psychologist that often produces a same-visit diagnosis · 937-641-3000 · the clinic's own materials describe targeting roughly 10 days between the referral questionnaire and a scheduled visit

How assessment works · What to do while you wait

Disability services and waivers: Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities Services

Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities Services organizes support by life stage — birth to 3, school age 3 to 13, teens 14 to 22 navigating the move to adult life, and adults and seniors — and is the county's access point for eligibility determination and for Ohio's Medicaid home- and community-based waivers, including Individual Options and Level One. As across Ohio, waiver applicants have been assessed by documented need rather than ranked by application date since a 2018 statewide policy change.

• Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities Services
• Phone: 937-890-0730 · after-hours (937) 457-2765

Local organizations that help Dayton families

• Autism Society of Greater Miami Valley — formerly the Dayton Autism Society; roughly 20 years serving about 4,000 families across Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Darke, and Preble counties with family support, advocacy, and educational consulting
• Miracle League of Greater Dayton — adaptive baseball on an all-weather, wheelchair-accessible rubberized field at Springboro Miracle Field, 1605 South Main Street, Springboro
• Five Rivers MetroParks — Access to Nature — up to 75% off program and camp fees, shelter rentals, and equipment for income-qualified Montgomery County residents, capped around $500 per year; 937-275-7275

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.

• The federal Part C standard Ohio follows gives Montgomery County's Early Intervention team 45 calendar days from a referral to finish the evaluation and hold the initial IFSP meeting. (source)
• Dayton-area districts' 60-day-from-consent evaluation window is itself bounded by a statewide 90-calendar-day cap measured from the referral date, whichever limit is shorter. (source)
• Reports on Ohio's needs-based waiver system have described waits for Individual Options or Level One funding through the Montgomery County board running anywhere from about two to ten years. (source)
• Ohio's autism insurance mandate applies to fully-funded plans for people through age 21 and can cap the ABA hours those plans must cover at 20 a week. (source)