Autism Resources in St. Petersburg, Florida

St. Petersburg sits at the heart of Pinellas County and the Tampa Bay region, and it holds one asset most Florida cities can only wish for: Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, a major pediatric medical center right in the city that runs a comprehensive Autism Program for evaluation and care. Around it sits a deep network of Pinellas ABA, speech, and occupational therapy providers, autism-specific schools, and the region's free navigation hub — USF CARD (the University of South Florida's Center for Autism and Related Disabilities), which serves Pinellas at no cost and with no waitlist for its core services. This guide walks through what's available to St. Pete and Pinellas families: diagnosis, therapy, schools, community and sensory-friendly activities, and how Florida's funding — insurance, Medicaid, and the long APD waiver waitlist — actually works.