Research shows that early screening and timely intervention can improve a child’s overall development and future outcomes. We continue to work on closing the diagnosis gap, with a special focus on high need, underserved area populations by empowering parents, educating physicians and increasing access to interventions and supports.

Here are a few of our FY21 accomplishments:

• Initiated a new bilingual public service campaign in collaboration with the Ad Council to help close the diagnosis gap, especially in minority populations. As a result, we increased the number of people accessing the M-CHAT autism screening questionnaire by 15 percent year over year.
• Created Caregiver Quick Tips six-part video series based on Caregivers Skills Training to help parents and caregivers use play and everyday solutions to better support their autistic child’s development, viewed more than 4,000 times in first four months following launch.
• Successfully advocated autism benefits coverage for an additional 3.4 million Americans, bringing the total number of covered individuals to 207 million or an estimated 65 percent of the U.S. population.