Title 42, The Public Health and WelfareRelease 119-110

§15009 Rights of Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

Title 42 › CHAPTER 144 — DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES ASSISTANCE AND BILL OF RIGHTS › SUBCHAPTER I — PROGRAMS FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES › Part A — General Provisions › § 15009

Last updated Sep 23, 2026|Official source

Summary

People with developmental disabilities must get proper treatment, services, and help learning skills. Those services should help each person reach their best ability and be given in places that limit their freedom as little as possible. The federal government and the states must only pay for institutions, homes, schools, or other community programs that give appropriate care and meet basic protections. Those protections include freedom from abuse, neglect, and exploitation; proper medical and dental care; strict limits on physical restraint and seclusion (only when immediately needed to keep someone safe and never as punishment or instead of treatment); limits on using drugs to control behavior; and allowing close relatives or guardians to visit without advance notice. All programs must meet standards that seek the best possible results. Residential programs that need to provide health, habilitation, assistive technology, or rehab services must meet standards at least equal to the intermediate care facility rules published by the Secretary on June 3, 1988. Other residential and nonresidential programs must provide appropriate, humane, sanitary care, admit people whose needs they can meet, and protect residents’ rights. These rights are in addition to any other rights people already have.

Full Legal Text

Title 42, §15009

The Public Health and Welfare, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)In general

Congress makes the following findings respecting the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities:

(1)Individuals with developmental disabilities have a right to appropriate treatment, services, and habilitation for such disabilities, consistent with section 15001(c) of this title.

(2)The treatment, services, and habitation for an individual with developmental disabilities should be designed to maximize the potential of the individual and should be provided in the setting that is least restrictive of the individual’s personal liberty.

(3)The Federal Government and the States both have an obligation to ensure that public funds are provided only to institutional programs, residential programs, and other community programs, including educational programs in which individuals with developmental disabilities participate, that—

(A)provide treatment, services, and habilitation that are appropriate to the needs of such individuals; and

(B)meet minimum standards relating to—

(i)provision of care that is free of abuse, neglect, sexual and financial exploitation, and violations of legal and human rights and that subjects individuals with developmental disabilities to no greater risk of harm than others in the general population;

(ii)provision to such individuals of appropriate and sufficient medical and dental services;

(iii)prohibition of the use of physical restraint and seclusion for such an individual unless absolutely necessary to ensure the immediate physical safety of the individual or others, and prohibition of the use of such restraint and seclusion as a punishment or as a substitute for a habilitation program;

(iv)prohibition of the excessive use of chemical restraints on such individuals and the use of such restraints as punishment or as a substitute for a habilitation program or in quantities that interfere with services, treatment, or habilitation for such individuals; and

(v)provision for close relatives or guardians of such individuals to visit the individuals without prior notice.

(4)All programs for individuals with developmental disabilities should meet standards—

(A)that are designed to assure the most favorable possible outcome for those served; and

(B)(i)in the case of residential programs serving individuals in need of comprehensive health-related, habilitative, assistive technology or rehabilitative services, that are at least equivalent to those standards applicable to intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded, promulgated in regulations of the Secretary on June 3, 1988, as appropriate, taking into account the size of the institutions and the service delivery arrangements of the facilities of the programs;

(ii)in the case of other residential programs for individuals with developmental disabilities, that assure that—

(I)care is appropriate to the needs of the individuals being served by such programs;

(II)the individuals admitted to facilities of such programs are individuals whose needs can be met through services provided by such facilities; and

(III)the facilities of such programs provide for the humane care of the residents of the facilities, are sanitary, and protect their rights; and

(iii)in the case of nonresidential programs, that assure that the care provided by such programs is appropriate to the individuals served by the programs.

(b)Clarification

The rights of individuals with developmental disabilities described in findings made in this section shall be considered to be in addition to any constitutional or other rights otherwise afforded to all individuals.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

42 U.S.C. § 15009

Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare

Last Updated

Sep 23, 2026

Release point: 119-110