HARTFORD, Conn. — Kelly Capuano of Fairfield worries about the care and guidance her son with intellectual disability will receive when she and her husband are no longer able to provide it.
It’s a common worry for untold numbers of parents, siblings and other caregivers in Connecticut. But now, Capuano also worries because her son, Alex, who is 19, was denied services for people with intellectual abilities. He applied to the state Department of Developmental Services and the agency deemed him ineligible, Capuano said.
Those services would help Alex and his entire family because it would help him to “participate in many of the activities we all want (our) children to participate in … once they become adults,” Capuano said.
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This includes having a job, earning money, living somewhat independently, participating in fun activities, hobbies, sports, “things they enjoy doing … with their peers,” Capuano said.
Capuano noted that while these are things “we all want for our kids,” that some children, due to their disabilities “need extra support,” and “they can thrive.”
And that, Capuano said, “really is the crux” of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Alex and three other state residents who have intellectual disabilities: Andrew Baylis, 23, of Darien; Daynasha Bohannon, 18, of Bridgeport, and Carriella Borchettam 20, of Trumbull.
The civil lawsuit, filed by Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder of Bridgeport, is against the state Department of Developmental Services and Commissioner Elisa Velardo over the department’s denial of eligibility for services to residents with disabilities “on the basis of a strict intelligence quotient” cutoff pursuant to state law, which the plaintiffs allege “arbitrarily deprives Connecticut residents of resources to which they would otherwise be entitled.”
As the cutoff is being applied, it is creating an “unconstitutional bureaucratic gap,” said attorney Luke Reynolds, of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder. “They are denied services designed to help them.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Developmental Services declined to comment on the lawsuit. Questions were referred to state fiscal documents. One such document says the DDS budget for FY 2027 is $1.63 billion. Another shows that the majority of clients who received DDS service live in a “family home.”
“All the plaintiffs were denied eligibility for services by DDS, despite having IQ scores that fell below 70, because one or more of their IQ scores rose above 70,” the suit says. “Each Plaintiff had concurrent low IQ and adaptive scores that a clinician found to meet the criteria for intellectual disability pursuant to the” diagnostic manual.
The lawsuit claims that under the department’s application of state law an applicant who has been diagnosed as having intellectual disability by a clinician and who otherwise meets the law’s eligibility criteria but whose testing record “reflects a Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (“FSIQ”) score of 70 or higher, is stripped of any process by which to obtain eligibility for DDS services.”
Further, it claims, Connecticut is one of only three states “in the country that continues to define intellectual disability with and exclusively rely on a strict IQ score cutoff to determine eligibility for Services” and that 47 states don’t mandate a strict IQ cutoff, but have approaches used by experts, clinicians, and the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition” that considers IQ as just “one factor in assessing intellectual disability.”
“A strict IQ cutoff is an inconsistent and unreliable measure of intellectual disability,” the suit says.
Andrew Feinstein, of the Feinstein Education Law Group, said that children and youths are entitled to services until age 22 in Connecticut, “and they reach that point and it’s the end of the road,” under current policy and actions.
Eligibility is the first step to all types of services available, the highest level being supported housing, and down to job coaching. Services are determined “based on the needs of the individual,” he said.
The clients have a lot to give and it is a loss to society when they can’t, he said, due to lack of support.
Jennifer Wheeler, of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, said “we want every person to access services promised to them.” Now, “the method for determining eligibility is arbitrary and outdated,” she said.
Connecticut “knows they have to make this change,” Wheeler said, and “in the meantime the costs are real; our plaintiffs are bearing the cost.”
A goal is “to not reduce these people to numbers, a single number,” she said, referring to the IQ eligibility level named in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs want to learn, they want to participate, “they can’t without additional support,” Wheeler said.
Sarah Mervine, also of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, said they have the documents that show the clients have intellectual disabilities, each of them diagnosed by a clinician, but they are not meeting the definition under the state statute.
Mervine also noted that in the case of jobs that might be appropriate for clients, they are not available unless the client is with DDS.
The suit also claims the existing statutory framework as established and as applied by DDS to determine eligibility for residents with disabilities “violates the United States Constitution’s Due Process Clause; the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause; Article I, Section 8 of the Connecticut Constitution, which prohibits deprivations of property without due process of law; and Article I, Section 20, of the Connecticut Constitution, which demands equal protection of the law for individuals with physical or mental disabilities.”
Reynolds said that if the suit were successful it could bring immediate relief and injunctive relief, meaning others in the state could reapply under a new standard, and rather than being missed by the system, it could bring “relief for hundreds if not thousands” of residents and their families.
Another of the plaintiffs in the suit, who lives at home with parents for full-time care and supervision, was deemed ineligible for services and was therefore denied case management services and other services necessary to allow continued participation in community life, or to pursue employment, the suit says.
By applying state law to exclude individuals from “benefits and services of DDS because they have one recorded IQ score ‘more than two standard deviations below the mean as measured by tests of general intellectual functioning,’” DDS “unreasonably and arbitrarily deprived the plaintiff of the plaintiff’s property interest in essential state benefits for which they are otherwise eligible,” the suit claims. According to state law, DDS is responsible for “complete, comprehensive and integrated state-wide services for persons with intellectual disability,” the suit says.
Another client has “profound adaptive deficiencies present since birth and persisting to date” and due to their intellectual disability, can’t live independently or go anywhere alone, can’t safely cook or make healthful eating choices or make independent financial decisions, the document says. The client was denied services more than once and after a hearing in 2025, a DDS hearing officer wrote that “(w)hile she did have sone (sic) IQ scores less than 69 other scores indicate a higher level of functioning and discussion of the results indicated other reasons for the lower score.”
The hearing officer determined that (the client) was ineligible for services because she “does not meet the criteria for services as defined in state law,” the suit says. As a result of the decision regarding eligibility, the client “has been denied case management services and other services necessary to allow her to safely continue participating in community life or to pursue employment opportunities.”
Capuano said her son is very social and outgoing, though he does not always pick up on social nuances and can have difficulty “to get words out.” While throughout his school years he had support to help him gain skills, “he continues to need support” such as job coaching to help facilitate some of the necessary conversations.
“Alex really does touch everybody he comes into contact with; it’s just his personality,” she said.
She also said that Alex loves bowling, is good at it, enough that he was on his high school bowling team for three years and also was in a bowling league. But due to a health issue Capuano had, she can no longer drive and Alex had to drop the league because of lack of transportation, she said.
Capuano said her health issue, which was sudden and “devastating” also “brought mortality to the forefront.” And for individuals like Alex and “so many other kids in this situation” who are denied services, “the weight of support falls on their family,” she said.
In her case, she said, she worries about “at some point who is going to take care of Alex” and allow him to “go after all of his dreams.”
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