Lawmakers take up special license plates, early screening in attempt to help Georgians with autism

The Georgia Senate last week passed a bill that would allow Georgians with autism or other developmental disorders and their family members to request to receive a special license plate.

Senate Bill 433 passed the chamber unanimously with the help of a little star power. Connor Tomlinson, one of the stars of Netflix’s “Love on the Spectrum,” made several appearances at the Capitol to testify that the bill would help Georgians like him.

“The sad truth is there is in fact a world of autistic people out there who are seriously misunderstood and oftentimes taken for offenders,” Tomlinson told reporters after the bill passed a Senate committee. “I merely seek to help rectify that to make the world a better place for people on the spectrum such as myself, and, well, I’m just glad I can help them out and be a part of it.”

A similar bill is moving through the House, and both chambers are moving forward on bills aiming to expand early autism detection in children in foster care.

About 2.9% of Georgia children have autism, according to the National Autism Data Center, which matches the country as a whole. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found the prevalence of autism in 8-year-olds rose nationwide from one in 150 in 2000 to one in 36 in 2020, which the authors attribute to increased detection rates, especially among younger children and those in underserved communities.

The autism data center’s data also shows the average age at diagnosis for autism in Georgia is around 5 years and 10 months old, compared with about 4 years and 11 months nationwide. And on average, about 63% of students with autism in Georgia graduated high school compared with about 72% nationwide.

The increase in diagnosis and unmet needs of children with autism has led to more attention being paid to autism under the Gold Dome, said D’Arcy Robb, executive director of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities.

“With the rise in autism diagnosis rates, we’ve seen a lot more attention – and this has been for many years – of legislation, programs, policies specifically targeted towards autism,” she said.

Identification

A mockup of a potential license plate allowed by SB 433 displays a special logo and reads “Autistic/Developmentally Disabled.” The goal is to inform police in a traffic stop or other high-stress situation that someone in the car may not react as expected due to their disability. It also mandates new training for law enforcement officers on identifying and interacting with people with autism spectrum disorder.

Autism is called a spectrum disorder because people with it can have a wide array of strengths and challenges and display a variety of behaviors. Some autistic people may exhibit behaviors that could be interpreted as rude or threatening to law enforcement, especially in stressful situations. This could include echolalia, the involuntary repetition of sounds made by another person, or elopement, when a child unable to cope with a situation runs or wanders away.

The bill is named Rio’s law, named after a South Carolina boy with autism whose mother, Layla Luna, helped pass a similar law in that state. Luna told Georgia lawmakers she was inspired to push for the legislation after a challenging traffic stop.

If it becomes law, a driver can request the license plate on behalf of themselves or a frequent passenger, like their spouse, a child or other ward. Getting the plate will require a note from a health care provider.

The bill received broad support under the Gold Dome, but some in the autism community have expressed concern that the plates could unintentionally make them targets for people who would see them as an easy target for anything from high pressure door-to-door sales tactics to carjacking.

Robb said she applauds the idea of educating law enforcement about how to best approach people with developmental disabilities, but worries about some of the specifics.

“We see the good intent a million percent, and we can see how some folks would want it,” she said. “But … I think there could definitely be some unintended consequences. Another thing, frankly, that we were concerned about was if law enforcement gets the idea that this is what I look for and if I don’t see this, there’s not going to be a person with a disability in the car.”

The sponsor, McDonough Republican Sen. Brian Strickland, is the father of a child with autism. Strickland, who is also running for attorney general, said he’s heard those concerns but stressed that the plate is voluntary and added that the law enforcement training component could benefit disabled Georgians who choose not to get the plate.

“Officers will now get, around the state, the same kind of training that I got as a parent, that I was able to get to help me understand my kid,” he added. “And I think it’s going to save lives, and it’s going to de-escalate a lot of different situations. And I think that having this in the code is such a huge step.”

Luna said in an interview that some parents in South Carolina also worried about privacy and safety but others decided the benefits outweigh the risks.

“The reality is most of us are on the roads nonstop, and this outweighs any potential carjacking or being targeted,” she said. “Parents want it, and they really feel strongly about it.”

A separate bill, authored by Jonesboro Democratic state Rep. Eric Bell, has a similar goal but would allow a Georgian with a physical or mental disability that is not immediately visible to put a symbol on their driver’s license rather than their license plate.

That bill, House Bill 954, is also named for a young man with autism who became an advocate.

Eric Carpenter-Grantham of Maryland helped pass a similar law in his home state.

Bell said Georgia’s version would also include a police training component, and he hopes it will pass in addition to the Senate bill.

“(SB 433) is great, but it’s not an either/or, it’s a yes-plus,” he said.

Bell said he’s pleased to see a push at the state level to help out people with autism and other developmental disorders.

“As the numbers of cases of autism increase, we have to be more cognizant and compassionate to that population,” he said.

Foster care screeners

Both chambers are also considering bills that would create pilot programs to screen for autism in children who enter the foster care system.

Senate Bill 402 by Vidalia Republican state Sen. Blake Tillery calls on the Division of Family and Children Services to develop a five-year pilot program to provide autism screenings for children in foster care. The pilot would start in three of the division’s 14 regional service areas and expand each year until the whole state participates.

House Bill 943 by Sandy Springs Republican Rep. Deborah Silcox is nearly identical. Both bills have passed their respective chambers.

For the youngest Georgians, early detection is key, and foster children are more likely to slip through the cracks and miss out on receiving help, said Dr. John Constantino, chief of behavioral and mental health at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

“To have all that time lapse and those children not get the appropriate services that they need makes it more difficult for their foster parents, more complicated to make good decisions about the reunification with their parents or disposition because they haven’t been appropriately understood for what their needs are,” Constantino said. “So I personally think it’s a great population to target. If you have to allocate a resource for a higher risk group that’s already at a disadvantage for services that could really help them, foster care is not a bad place to target that.”

Early detection and treatment can make a big difference for children with autism, often greatly decreasing the amount of support they need as they grow up.

Constantino said the real measure of the pilot program’s success will be whether the children who are diagnosed get the care they need.

“If all you do is screen but there’s no place for the patients to go, that’s another issue,” he said. “If the pilot is designed to just figure out how many people we have who would benefit from greater identification, then that’s fine. But I would advocate that when people are thinking about screening, that there are a lot of children who are screening positive and just aren’t finding the services, so we have to link screening with solid evaluation and then appropriate intervention.”

Tillery, who is running for lieutenant governor, said the state Department of Human Services, which oversees DFCS, will choose the initial regions for the pilot program based in part on the availability of care.

“When we’re picking the pilot areas, the worst thing is to give someone hope without the ability to actually resolve it, so we’re going to be looking at regions that have the providers,” he said.