Maryland Department of Disabilities (MDOD) official feedback to help shape the new National Autism Strategic Plan

The Maryland Department of Disabilities (MDOD) is one of the nation's only cabinet-level state departments of disabilities, charged with coordinating and improving the delivery of services to individuals with disabilities across the state. MDOD houses the Office of the Coordinator of State Autism Strategy, which is a position appointed by the Governor and dedicated by statute to the drafting and implementation of a State strategic plan on autism-related needs. The State’s current five year plan was introduced in April of 2025 and recently just wrapped up its first full fiscal year of implementation. It can be reviewed here: Maryland Strategic Plan for Autism-Related Needs.

As a leading voice on the topic of autism strategy, MDOD thanks the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) for its initiative in creating a new annual strategic plan on the national level and submits the following comments as feedback on the final document.

Overarching themes reflected in our comments include the critical nature of community integration, applying the principles of the broader disability community to autism, as well as the government's responsibility to combat misinformation in regards to autism.

It is imperative that any national strategic plan emphasize the integration of people with autism and autistic people into the community per the legal requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court in the Olmstead decision.

When it comes to housing, we recommend an emphasis on the long-standing best practice of encouraging and focusing funding and infrastructure-building on the fundamental model of integration as defined in Maryland's strategic plan: That autistic people live in their communities, in their own homes, receiving home and community-based services in an integrated manner that isn't segregated from the rest of society. We ask that the IACC recommend greater funding for models that align with this principle and on established applications of Olmstead and for enforcement at the federal level.

Fundamentally, the top priority and guiding principle of autism policy for the State of Maryland when it comes to Housing and Community Integration is that people with autism live and thrive in their chosen communities, not in those chosen for them. We encourage the federal government to commit to a similar framework.

A fundamental part of ensuring that autistic people can live and thrive in their chosen communities is ensuring access to the health services they need in their own homes rather than in institutional settings such as nursing homes, hospitals, or broader institutions. Furthermore, Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waivers through Medicaid are critical to achieving this goal by allowing states to use Medicaid money to pay for care and support services right where people live.

Our input is that the IACC recommend an increase in federal funding to the waiver system and strengthen the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) mandates towards these waivers, with an emphasis on supporting community-based care, rather than pursue any model that weakens this system. The principles of HCBS are already sound—but greater resources and support are needed at the federal level. This will make it easier for states like Maryland to end waitlists, streamline services, and ensure that direct service providers are more readily available.

An integral part of Maryland's strategic plan and broader disability policy is that guardianship of people with autism and other disabilities should be a rare last resort. To that end, Maryland adopted into statute an assisted decision making model that is guided by the individual with the disability to receive the assistance they need while maintaining autonomy. We believe this assisted decision making model can be an example for other states to follow and should be encouraged by the federal government.

We ask that the IACC strategic plan frame guardianship as an option that should only be taken rarely and as a last resort. The IACC strategic plan should prioritize sharing information about state assisted decision making systems in the planned Autism.gov website, and identify incentives for states to implement these models.

We are pleased to see the proposal to establish a federal government website dedicated to sharing resources for the autism community at Autism.gov. Maryland is also in the process of creating a similar website at the state level, in alignment with resource creation and sharing as a major priority of our implementation of the State strategic plan.

We believe Autism.gov presents an opportunity for the federal government to use its credibility and authority to dispel misinformation about autism, as well as emphasize societal acceptance of autism and push back on common misconceptions of people on the autism spectrum being “broken” or that an autism diagnosis is a tragedy in need of a cure.

To that end, we recommend the proposed website include the following elements:

MDOD and its Coordinator of State Autism Strategy are committed to the success of all autistic people, their families, and caregivers. To that end, we remain at your disposal should you have any questions in regards to our comments or Maryland's State Strategic Plan for Autism-Related Needs and its implementation. Please do not hesitate to reach us at [email protected].

Sincerely, Victoria M. Rodríguez-Roldán
Coordinator of State Autism Strategy