Illinois families waiting up to two years for their toddlers to receive an autism diagnosis will soon have a faster path. Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 5225 on Friday, July 10, making Illinois the first state to allow trained speech-language pathologists to diagnose autism in children under three enrolled in the state's Early Intervention program.

The law grew directly out of a four-year Northwestern University study led by Megan Roberts, a professor and licensed speech-language pathologist in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Roberts' "Reduce the Wait" study enrolled 639 children across Illinois who were awaiting autism evaluations through Early Intervention. Testing ran from November 2022 through February 2025. The children ranged from 16 to 36 months old, and 70% were boys. The results: trained SLPs agreed with expert diagnostic teams 93% of the time, according to Northwestern's announcement. By comparison, a separate study found general pediatricians matched experts only 82% of the time.

"The current system was failing children," Roberts said. "Decades of research had not reduced the average age of diagnosis, telling us we really need a drastic paradigm shift to move the needle."

The bottleneck is stark.

As recently as 2025, Illinois had just 23 developmental behavioral pediatricians statewide, according to the Evanston Roundtable. Meanwhile, the state's Early Intervention system employs more than 4,000 speech-language pathologists. Families in the Reduce the Wait study waited an average of one month for an evaluation, compared with 15 months through the traditional pathway.

The law does not replace physician or psychologist diagnoses. It creates an additional pathway and ensures that SLP-delivered diagnoses are covered by insurance and Medicaid. An autism diagnosis through Early Intervention can also unlock supplemental security income for qualifying families.

State Rep. Natalie Manley, a Joliet Democrat who founded the Illinois Legislative Neurodiversity Caucus and whose grandson experienced a long wait for diagnosis, sponsored the bill in the House. State Sen. Meg Loughran Cappel, a Shorewood Democrat and former special education teacher, carried it in the Senate. The Illinois General Assembly approved the measure unanimously.

Roberts connected her research to lawmakers through Jonathan Doster, director of legislative affairs for Start Early, a national early-childhood advocacy nonprofit. Doster said it was rare to find "a well-researched, cost-effective solution to a policy problem that seems intractable."

The study was federally funded with approximately $3 million from the Institute of Education Sciences within the U.S. Department of Education. Fifty-three percent of participating families received government assistance, and evaluations were conducted via telehealth, reaching rural, suburban, and urban households. Seventy percent of the SLP providers had no previous experience with autism screening tools before the study's training program.

Now Public Act 104-561, the law takes effect January 1, 2028. The 18-month implementation window gives the Illinois Department of Early Childhood time for rulemaking and coordination with families, providers, and policymakers. Roberts said she is already fielding inquiries from speech-language pathologists in other states about passing similar legislation.