Autism Resources in Pennsylvania

A statewide guide to autism services across Pennsylvania — for families in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Scranton, and communities across the Commonwealth.

Pennsylvania has some genuinely distinctive features in how it serves autistic people. It runs a dedicated Bureau of Autism Services with autism-specific Medicaid programs for adults — the Adult Autism Waiver and the Adult Community Autism Program — which is unusual nationally. It has a notable Medicaid pathway (often called PH-95 or "the loophole") that can qualify a disabled child for Medical Assistance regardless of family income. And it delivers behavioral health services to children through IBHS, a program that replaced the older BHRS/"wraparound" model in 2021.

It also has real gaps — county-by-county variation in Early Intervention, waiting lists and capacity limits in the adult system, and long diagnostic waits at the busiest academic centers.

This page walks through how the pieces fit together and where the gaps are.

We've written this as a starting point. Pennsylvania readers who know specifics better than we do — tell us what we got wrong or missed.