Eligibility

Clients & families

Am I Eligible?

  • To be eligible for any regional center program, you MUST be a resident of San Diego or Imperial County. There are NO financial qualifications for regional center programs.

  • Eligibility is established through diagnosis and assessment performed by regional centers.
  • To begin the intake process, you must complete the two-page Electronic Initial Contact Form.
  • Intake refers to the process where we collect important information about you or your family member capturing everything from addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, medical and social history, and more. This is an important step in determining eligibility for regional center services.
  • Once the form is submitted, an Intake Coordinator will review it and call to gather more information and provide you with more details about the process.
  • The intake process can be confusing and overwhelming. To help us help you, be prepared to discuss your concerns, diagnosis, therapies, and services you or your child have received. The Intake Coordinator will address these and explain the eligibility criteria, intake process, and time frames.
  • Regional centers provide two separate programs, each with different eligibility rules.
  • The California Early Start Program is for infants, from birth to 36 months. For children and adults, aged 3 and older, Regional Center Services, also called Lanterman Services, are provided.

Eligibility for California Early Start Services

Infants and toddlers, birth to 36 months, are eligible for the Early Start Program if they require early intervention services due to one of the following:

Developmental Delays

The child must have a delay of at least 25% in one or more of the following developmental areas:

  • Cognitive
  • Physical/Motor
  • Expressive Communication
  • Receptive Communication
  • Adaptive Skills

Established Risk

When an infant or toddler has a condition that is very likely to cause a developmental delay.
An example is a child born with Down syndrome or Prader-Willi. The child need not be demonstrating delays at time of referral.

High Risk of a Developmental Disability

When the child has two or more of the following factors:

  • Less than 32 weeks gestation and/or birth weight less than 1500 grams
  • Assisted ventilation for 48 hours or longer during the first 28 days of life
  • Small for gestational age
  • Asphyxia neonatorum
  • Severe and persistent metabolic seizures during the first 3 years of life
  • Neonatal seizures or non-febrile seizures during the first 3 years of life
  • CNS lesion or abnormality
  • CNS Infection
  • Biomedical insult (injury, accident, or illness) which may affect developmental outcome
  • Prenatal exposure to teratogens
  • Prenatal substance exposure, positive tox screen, or withdrawal
  • Fetal alcohol syndrome
  • Clinically significant failure to thrive
  • Persistent hypertonia or hypotonia

OR the parent of the infant/toddler is a person with a developmental disability

1)  To determine eligibility for Early Start services, your child will undergo a play-based assessment in the following five areas of development: cognitive, physical/motor, expressive communication, receptive communication, social/emotional, and adaptive skills. You’ll be assigned an SDRC Service Coordinator (SC) who will work with you to help make the process as smooth and comforting as possible.

2)  Once your child is found eligible for services, you and your SC will create an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP). The IFSP is a family-focused, goal-oriented plan written to address the child’s developmental needs and family concerns.

3)  Early intervention services will then be coordinated according to the IFSP.

APPLY FOR CA EARLY START SERVICES

Eligibility for San Diego Regional Center Services

Individuals three years and older may be eligible for SDRC services based on a developmental disability providing the condition (disability) originated before the age of 18 and is likely to continue indefinitely.

Developmental disabilities include:

Intellectual Disability (ID) also called Intellectual Development Disorder (IDD) – When a person has certain limitations in mental function and adaptive skills. The limitations will cause a child to learn and develop more slowly than a typical child.

Cerebral Palsy (CP) – A disorder that affects body movement and muscle coordination. It can be caused either when the brain does not develop properly during pregnancy or if there is damage to the brain before, during, or after birth.

Epilepsy (EP) – A neurological disorder that is characterized by recurrent seizures. Seizures may involve partial or complete loss of consciousness, uncontrolled body movements, excessive sleepiness, and loss of memory.

Autism also called Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – is a disorder that affects an individual’s ability to communicate, understand language, play, and relate to others.

Other conditions similar to an intellectual disability or require similar treatment as an individual with an intellectual disability.

AND

Significantly affect three or more of the following areas:

  1. Communication
  2. Learning
  3. Self-direction
  4. capacity for independent living
  5. economic self-sufficiency
  6. self-care
  7. mobility

Provisional Eligibility

If a child is not eligible for services under SDRC’s definition of a developmental disability and is three or four years old, then provisional eligibility may be offered. 

The child must have a disability that is not just physical and must have significant limitations in at least two of the following areas:

  1. Self-care
  2. Learning
  3. Receptive and expressive language
  4. Mobility
  5. Self-direction

APPLY FOR SDRC SERVICES