Developmental/Intellectual Disabilities

This summary of research findings gathers research findings from a variety of National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research projects related to the impact of COVID-19 on people with disabilities. The document highlights collects projects focusing on specific research areas including community engagement, rural populations, telehealth, students, and return-to-work accommodations.

This infographic has facts and statistics about the experiences of Americans with disabilities throughout their lives.

A Master Plan for Aging (MPA) is a cross-sector, state-led strategic planning process that can help states transform the infrastructure and coordination of services that support older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers.This brief outlines unexpected benefits of the MPA process, and illustrates how they can help states respond to new priorities and challenges, such as public health emergencies and health equity.

Remote Support - Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities

Knox DD - Assistive Technology & Remote Supports

Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have gained flexibility to offer a wide range of new supplemental benefits and to target benefits to members with specific conditions and individual need. This data insight provides an analysis of non-medical supplemental benefit growth since 2020, and focuses on the following: Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI), which first became available in 2020 through the passage of the CHRONIC Care Act and a set of five Expanded Primarily Health-Related Benefits (EPHRB), which first became available in 2019 after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded the definition of what could be considered “primarily health-related."

The majority of individuals who need long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the United States rely on unpaid assistance from family and friends. The economic value of the unpaid care they provide is estimated to be over $470 billion annually. Unmet needs and waiting lists for Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) place significant strain on individuals with disabilities and their families. This report explores how increasing access to HCBS services can reduce out-of-pocket costs for families and strengthen employment and financial wellbeing of family caregivers.

CMS has announced it will offer more than $110 million to expand access to home and community-based services (HCBS) through Medicaid’s Money Follows the Person (MFP) program. The new Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) makes individual awards of up to $5 million available for more than 20 states and territories not currently participating in MFP. These funds will support initial planning and implementation to get the state/territory programs off the ground, which would ensure more people with Medicaid can receive high-quality, cost-effective, person-centered services in a setting they choose.

In this blog post, Jill Jacobs, Commissioner on Disabilities at ACL, reflects on Developmental Disabilites (DD) Awareness month by highlighting recent innovations in ACL's DD programs, and the Administration on Disabilities (AOD) goals for the year ahead. AOD's upcoming priorities include continuing to address the DSP workforce crisis, investing in projects to advance equity and reach people with disabilities at the intersections of identity, and continuing to support individuals with both DD and mental health diagnoses. The blog post also shares experiences with disability that the new Commissioner brings to her role.

ACL is proposing to amend its regulations for the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). These important amendments to NIDILRR's peer review criteria will allow NIDILRR to better evaluate how grant applicants conduct outreach and hire people with disabilities and others that have been underserved and underrepresented. The amendments also emphasize the need for engineering research and development activities within NIDILRR's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERC) program.