NDIS episode with Jane McFadden
In this episode of the ADHD Mums Podcast, Jane dives into her family’s journey with developmental delays, early intervention, and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). From navigating unwelcome playground comments to discovering “global developmental delay,” Jane shares the reality of advocating for her daughter, learning the system, and how the NDIS can change lives for families.
Key Takeaways from Today’s Episode:
What we cover in this episode:
- Jane’s personal story of recognising delays in her daughter’s development
- What “developmental delay” and “global developmental delay” mean
- Why ADHD alone isn’t accepted as a primary disability under the NDIS
- How co-occurring conditions (autism, PTSD, bipolar, schizophrenia) may help with eligibility
- Early intervention: why getting in before age six is so important, and why supports can now extend to age nine
- How to self-refer to NDIS early childhood partners without waiting for a GP
- Centrelink supports to know about: Carer’s Payment, Carer’s Allowance, Carer Adjustment Payment, and Companion Cards
- The three NDIS funding buckets: capacity building, core supports, and consumables/assistive technology
- Why persistence, advocacy, and sometimes a second opinion are essential
This episode is for you if:
- You have a child under six who might need extra support with speech, motor skills, or emotional regulation
- You’ve been told to “wait and see” but your instincts say otherwise
- You’re confused about why ADHD alone doesn’t qualify for NDIS support
You want to understand how early intervention works and how long it lasts - You’re looking for practical tips on accessing Centrelink and NDIS supports as a parent
Transcript:
Jane McFadden:
Hello and welcome to the ADHD Mums Podcast. This is my first day free of my children in the September school holidays. And where do you find me? Cooped up in my office, researching and planning an episode on the NDIS.
Why? Because I have ADHD. I can’t rest, I have a very hyperactive brain and I’ve been itching to do something productive. For me, one of my ADHD hyper focuses is always legislation. I love it.
I know you’re going to be thinking, really? Yes, it is. So for me, when I found out that my daughter Gigi, or when I realized that she was behind—which was immediately—so when you’re in mother’s group and all of the kids are rolling, I remember this vividly, everyone else’s child or baby was rolling and Gigi wouldn’t even let me put her on the ground.
I thought she couldn’t roll because she was never on the ground. I had to hold her all the time. There was no reprieve.
She didn’t sleep in a cot. We had no air con in Queensland. She slept on me every day for hours, sweating. I couldn’t do the simplest of tasks, including go to the toilet. I remember trying to do a number two and I had her strapped to me crying and I was like, this is just not right.
Anyway, so six months I think it was, people were rolling, other babies’ kids were rolling, then they were crawling and Gigi was barely even sitting up. So it was pretty obvious from the behind. She was also massive. So I was like, well, maybe she’s just too heavy to crawl.
Like maybe it’s hard for her to sit up. Everyone else’s kids looked kind of smaller and more mobile. And she was really large. She had a lot of rolls and she didn’t move a lot.
Fast forward onwards, she never crawled. She did eventually roll and she used to just roll places instead of crawling. She just rolled and rolled and rolled. Then she started bum shuffling when she was about 14 months old.
And I was already pregnant with my middle son. I remember being, oh, she’s so pregnant. Must’ve been like eight months pregnant. And we took Gigi to a physio and it was like super expensive.
I remember we didn’t have a lot of money and it was like $180 for the appointment. And I was thinking, this woman needs to make magic in this $180 because I can’t go on a 10-session plan here. Like she’s got to make this work. And she taught Gigi to walk in a couple of sessions.
That was because I was so heavily pregnant. I was about to have a newborn baby and I had a daughter or a toddler that was just about to turn two and couldn’t walk.
So we did end up going to the GP numerous times. He told me that I was being silly and she was fine and everyone got there on their own. And it was really confronting because I ended up just not going to any playgrounds.
I ended up stopping swimming lessons because I just felt—I wasn’t embarrassed of Gigi at all—I was more irritated with other parents. Because what I felt like was happening was she would bum scoot up on a slide, scoot down, and then bum scoot along.
And because she was just under two, but she was the size of a three-year-old, other mothers would not be meaning this in a mean way, but they would come up to me like, oh, isn’t that interesting? Your daughter isn’t walking yet or crawling. How old is she? Have you thought of getting her assessed? Maybe you should take her to a GP.
And I just felt like obviously they’re trying to educate me, or they’re trying to help, or maybe they’re just bored. I don’t know what they were trying to do, but I tell you it was unwarranted advice.
I turned around a couple of times and said, yeah, you know, I hadn’t noticed that my nearly two-year-old isn’t walking yet. Like, you know, I’m heavily pregnant. Yeah, that’s going to be hard. Hadn’t crossed my mind.
Because I just was irritated. And I was like, yeah, I know. And I’m doing everything I can. And she’s just not getting it. Speech was behind as well. And there was a few things, you know, fine motor skills that I felt like she was behind.
So right when the NDIS was rolling out, I remember being accepted into Queensland disability. Eventually my GP that I really loved just told me so many times that Gigi was fine. And I ended up just not believing him.
I went to a different GP who specialised in kids who said immediately, yes, this is called developmental delay, which I had never heard those words before.
Jane McFadden:
So what is a developmental delay? Developmental delay is a term used to describe a delay in a child’s development. Wow, that seems really obvious.
Basically, it just means that a child finds it harder to do everyday things that other children can do that age. So, for example, walking, crawling, talking, dressing themselves.
You can hear the term developmentally delayed a lot. And a lot of the time when a child is really young, they class it as a developmental delay because—I mean, how do you even begin to diagnose a two-year-old child? You don’t. And possibly, you know, in my opinion, you shouldn’t. Which is why they call it developmental delay.
So in the end, Gigi was kind of diagnosed. It’s not even really a diagnosis, but they call it global developmental delay when it goes on more than just a couple of areas.
So I think she was quite delayed in her gross motor, in her speech. And maybe they put down fine motor skills—I can’t remember. But if it was up to me, I’d probably say more just the gross motor skills were delayed.
Anyway, so this GP referred me to—I think it was like the public system pediatrician—and that took a long time to get in. We eventually got in just before Gigi was two.
I’m not sure if she was walking or not then, but that was when really I started to get worried. I think we got in—sorry, we got in with a pediatrician just after Gigi turned two and I had a newborn.
So that was great, going to these appointments with a two-year-old and a newborn, lining up for ages in a waiting room. It was a very difficult time.
We eventually got in with a public system pediatrician, which was all through the government, through the GP. And he said to me, yes, I can see what you’re saying, and I do think she has global developmental delay.
And I’m going to basically do an application for Queensland disability. Which—I mean, just those words was pretty confronting at that time. You feel like the rug’s been ripped out from underneath you, don’t you? It was a pretty confronting feeling.
And eventually—or not even eventually—it was probably a few months later, we were then somehow just put automatically onto the NDIS and we were accepted into Bush Kids, which is our early intervention center here in Queensland on the Sunshine Coast.
So that was my introduction into the NDIS. Let’s take a step back for the moment.
Jane McFadden:
So if we look at what does the NDIS do? The aim of the NDIS is to help people with disabilities achieve their goals and participate in the community.
The NDIS supports people that have permanent and significant disabilities that affect their ability to take part in everyday activities. And the NDIS creates goals for the participants in the scheme. That’s the correct way of saying it.
They might have a goal of greater independence, more involvement, education, health, well-being, and they are given control and choice over how they use their funds.
So you might be thinking, what do you mean funds? How is this working? Basically, you have to be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident. You cannot access the NDIS if you are a citizen in another country living in this country. It’s a little bit like Centrelink, basically. And you need to live in Australia to access these supports.
So these disabilities need to be permanent. So when you’re wondering—and I know there’s a lot of people who’ve been wondering—why does the NDIS not allow people with ADHD into their scheme?
Okay, so the NDIS believe—this is not what I believe—that ADHD is a treatable condition. And if you take medication, you’re 100% fine. Obviously, it doesn’t take into account that the medication can be hard to get, diagnosis is hard to get, and there’s a lot of lifestyle changes that we need to take into account. So I don’t want to minimize that at all.
But the NDIS see it that way. Now, you can still get, you can access support for ADHD. But the part that makes it difficult is that there’s different levels or different types of disabilities within the NDIS.
So they have what’s called the primary disability, which is, as it sounds, the main thing, right? So ADHD cannot be the main thing. It cannot be the primary disability. So if you only have ADHD, or your child only has ADHD, you are not able to get on the NDIS.
However, the part here that is interesting is that you can access the NDIS if you are using something else for your primary disability. You can access supports for ADHD. So ADHD can be secondary.
So let’s just talk about you for a second. If you’re a mum with ADHD, which most of you will be, you’ve probably battled with mental health. You’ve probably battled with depression, anxiety, and you’ve probably battled severely.
Now, the NDIS see this as a permanent disability—that’s what they’re supporting. Depression and anxiety aren’t in their eyes—this is just their eyes, not mine—a permanent disability, because you can get better, you can take medication, you can access supports, and you can improve.
However, if you’ve had a really severe bout, or you’ve had it lifelong, it’s chronic, you’ve got a great psychiatrist on board, I would encourage you to have a crack. Put something in. The worst that can happen is that they say no. But I do know that mental health is on there. It just depends on the severity.
I would imagine they would make it pretty hard, but that’s—I mean, what do you have to lose by putting in an application? Personally, I would.
Jane McFadden:
The other thing that the NDIS do accept more often is more of the psychiatric mental health ones. So, for example, PTSD—I know that they will or can accept that depending on the severity.
Bipolar, schizophrenia, some of those conditions are more likely to be approved. So if you have a diagnosis at some point, whether you believe it’s right or not, for schizophrenia, or bipolar, or PTSD—a lot of people have got a lot of trauma—then that actually would be able to be a primary disability.
But you would need to put in a psychiatrist report to really back that up. A GP’s letter is not going to cut it. You need to have a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist report to back that up.
The other thing is as well is that often—or sometimes—ADHD and autism can go hand in hand. Some people I’ve heard refer to ADHD and autism as quite a low fence in that it’s not hard to jump from one to the other.
If you have had an autism or an ASD diagnosis, that is something that is able to be applied for the NDIS. Now within ASD, you may or may not agree, but there are three categories. So the first category is level one autism, there’s level two, and there’s level three.
And if you’re wondering what ASD stands for, it’s autism spectrum disorder. Which—autism, ASD—very similar, it’s just the acronym.
So if you’ve had an ASD diagnosis and you are level one, you can put an application in. But I suppose in the NDIS’s mind, it’s mild. And I know categorizing autism I think is something that a lot of people have a problem with, so I’m not meaning to offend anybody. But level one is quite difficult.
Level two is pretty—not easy—but you will often get accepted onto the NDIS. And level three, yes. It really depends on the diagnosis that you’re getting and who you’re getting that from.
A lot of psychologists I know are pretty relaxed with level one and two because they are actually actively trying to help you get on the NDIS. So I do know a couple of psychologists that have told me on the side that they will lean towards the two to really help that child particularly get the supports that they need.
If you need to get a second opinion from an ASD diagnosis one, maybe you get a second opinion with someone like a clinical psychologist and ask them if they’d be willing to maybe look a little bit more closely at some of the traits that you’re seeing.
Personally, I find Facebook groups really great for research. I would research clinical psychologists in the area that you live in. Or generally for kids, the psychologists want to do in person. I have never seen an assessment for ASD ADHD for a child online.
A second opinion can be really worthwhile because if you end up with a level two ASD diagnosis—as an adult or for one of your children—you are actively able to access the NDIS. Not quite quickly, but it is a lot easier than if you have an ASD level one diagnosis or depression.
I suppose it’s a severity in the NDIS’s mind. They have to try and create a line somewhere and a ruling somewhere. And it’s categorizing people, which I don’t like, but I don’t know how else they’re supposed to do it.
Jane McFadden:
So as an adult, another thing I would really look at doing is Centrelink. So if you’re living with somebody, they should be able to receive the carer’s allowance.
There’s two different types of carer’s allowance that you can get through Centrelink. So there’s two carer’s payments. One is income tested and one isn’t.
The first one is called the carer payment. It depends on whether you’re single, whether you’re partnered, and how much income you make. So it’s always best to just look it up.
If you’re making over a certain amount of money, you’re not eligible. So if you think you might be eligible and you don’t have a high income, I would definitely be looking at the carer’s payment.
Or if you think, oh, I might actually be over that, you can also get the carer’s allowance. So this is income tested and this is $144.80 a fortnight. And this is for you if you are caring for somebody who needs daily care for at least 12 months.
If you have kids on the NDIS—which we’ll get to—you are able to get paid per child. So if you do have a low income, you could receive both the carer’s payment and the carer’s allowance per child.
I think it’s definitely worth applying for, definitely worth asking for. A lot of us mums are already on the Centrelink website. We already have payments coming in from family tax or for childcare. So we already have open accounts. It’s always worth putting in an application, I reckon.
So within the NDIS, if you’re able to get onto the NDIS, there is that as well.
The other thing that’s worth looking up as well is if you do have a child that’s under seven, there is a carer adjustment payment and it’s called CAP. And it provides assistance of up to $10,000 in exceptional circumstances.
Now, this is a really odd one. I didn’t know whether to mention this or not. So if your child is diagnosed with something that is considered catastrophic in Centrelink’s eyes, then Centrelink will give you just under $10,000 per child.
So let’s say if you have three children who’ve been diagnosed with ASD or something quite severe, then you are able to put in an application for just under $10,000 per child under seven.
So I do know someone recently who had four children under eight, I think it was, being diagnosed with autism. And they ended up getting just over $30,000 because the oldest one, I think, was eight and just missed out. And they actually were able to receive that.
However, I’m looking up on the website now and autism is no longer listed as a catastrophic event. So that’s interesting. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I know that this was only a few months ago that I saw that happen.
So I’m not sure if they’ve just changed it. Again, it’d be worth asking.
I can see here it says if they’re under seven with a severe disability with significant care requirements—full-time care minimum of two months. Autism used to be on there. So I would check, because I think that’s possibly worth looking into.
So I’d be looking through carer’s allowance, carer’s payment, and the carer adjustment payment. There’s also, I think, about a $600 lump sum on the carer’s allowance, which is basically for the carer to do something nice for themselves once a year.
So if you do have children that are able to access the NDIS or are going through the diagnosis process, I would definitely be putting in some applications.
There’s also as well a companion card. So you can get a companion card, which is able to be linked with somebody that has a significant or permanent disability who needs care in the community.
The companion card allows the person with the card holder to take a support person free of entry to participating venues and events.
So if you’re going to Australia Zoo, for example, and you have your child who has ASD and there’s just obviously no way that they can go in by themselves—which most people wouldn’t let the child go into Australia Zoo by themselves anyway—you are able to access free to go in for free. And I think that is a really interesting one as well.
You are able to get a GP or a psychologist to sign off on that. So I would be looking at a companion card, carer’s allowance, carer’s payment, and this top-up payment that we spoke about if you are able to access the NDIS.
So we’re going to get back off Centrelink for a moment. Sorry about the rabbit hole there, but it was an important one.
Jane McFadden:
So if we’ve talked about the adults accessing the NDIS, we’ve talked about Centrelink, now we need to get to the kids.
So there’s two categories here that I want to just talk about separately. There’s early intervention, which is for children that are younger than six. Then we’re going to talk about children who are over six, because it’s actually separate.
So for children younger than six, they qualify for early intervention. And the NDIS’s thought pattern around this is that we are going to be helping everybody for early intervention. So that is when your brain is nice and malleable.
We can really make some great crossroads with the right therapies. You can set kids on the right path for school, which is, you know, to kind of be their best self and get everything that they need to catch up if they are a little delayed, for example.
So you don’t need a diagnosis to access early intervention. And when you are accessing early intervention, it is about that. It is not about gaining a diagnosis. It is about accessing help and support.
So if you have children, I wouldn’t delay. I would personally get all of my children into this before they’re six.
The reason being is because they’ve actually just extended from July their requirements. So before, if you were, let’s say, two and you accessed it at six, what would happen is that NDIS did an assessment and decided that you were good to go. You didn’t—you know—you’re all better in their minds.
What they can do is they can end the supports at six. So they have to kind of make a call. Either way, are you on the NDIS or are you not? And sometimes people were finding that they were still progressing with their OT and their speech and they weren’t able to access anymore.
So they’ve extended that out to nine—nine years old. So if you’re currently accessing early intervention and you’re about to turn seven, you actually get another whole three years, which is pretty amazing, to be on that early intervention until nine.
However, you need to be diagnosed before six, not after. So under six is definitely better, because if you can access supports before you’re six, you can have another extra three years of OT, speech, or psycho, whatever it is that you need—physio.
And the other thing is as well, a lot of parents are against labeling and they don’t want to diagnose and label. Well, this isn’t even about that. This is just isolating things that are not developing at the same pace and then creating supports and education on how to get them there.
So the NDIS will have a look at your child and they will decide whether they have a developmental delay. So what they’ll be thinking about is: is it a mental or physical impairment? And does it substantially reduce your child’s functional capacity compared with children the same age?
And that your child needs services from more than one person or one allied health team member for longer than 12 months.
Children with ADHD—this would be a great place to put them in early because a lot of the time they are a little delayed. Sometimes they have hypermobility, their gross motor, fine motor, their speech can also need some work.
So the great thing about this is that you don’t need a full diagnosis, which can be hard to get. And you might not get a diagnosis that’s outside of ADHD, but they can call this developmental delay or global developmental delay if it affects more than just a couple of areas. And it can mean that you can get support straight away.
So if you’re on this podcast and you’re thinking, oh yes, I have a child that’s under six and I think their speech and maybe their gross motor is a little behind—remember as well, when you have professionals looking at a child, they might see things that you don’t see.
So often I actually think that we see our kids as better than they are. I have never taken my child—or any of my children—to a professional and had the professional go, oh, I actually think they’re fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
And I mean—sorry—a GP can do that and a teacher, but like a proper allied health, if I show them the kid’s ankles coming in—because all of my kids need orthotics—generally the person’s like, oh no, this is pretty obvious. Yes, we need to get this sorted. Tick, tick.
So my experience of the early intervention NDIS partners has been really good.
Jane McFadden:
So, okay, how do you access would be the next question.
Basically, if you want to access the early intervention partner—which is basically like just an external provider for the NDIS—all you need to do is go onto the NDIS website and I can put the link in the podcast notes.
You put in your state and it will show you where they are. You can self-refer, you don’t need your GP on board.
All I did with my kids was I just went online and went, you know, blah blah blah, child number two, speech and language delay and fine motor, gross motor skills delay, and just self-referred. They called me and got me in, agreed, called it a developmental delay.
I’ve got both of my boys—one’s just turned six, he’s on, which is great. And then the other one’s four and a half and he’s on. So both of them have got until nine for all the early intervention supports.
And that did take a while. So if your child is coming up to six, make sure that you do think about it.
I mean, most people would look at my boys particularly and say that they were fine. You know, I’m doing the speech kind of marks fine. But actually, if you look at them, the first thing the physio said was, no, well, they’re running off, they’re very uncoordinated. They run with straight arms. I hadn’t even noticed anything of that.
We were recommended for OT and speech. Again, I was not really thinking that was an issue. Apparently it was fine motor skills, a little bit slow on the pen grip as well.
So I found the early intervention partners to be quite open-minded and quite proactive. And I wasn’t like having to prove anything to them. They were actually like coming to me and going, hmm, I actually think we need to do this, this, and this as well.
So again, this isn’t about diagnosing. This is just literally about putting supports in place.
Okay. So you might be thinking now, okay, well, that sounds good. I wonder what happens—like what do you get from the NDIS?
So firstly, the early intervention local provider will help you do an application and you’ll have to do an identity document, which is irritating, but the partners are quite good at helping. And they will send you a letter and probably give you a call and let you know whether you have met accessibility requirements.
Which basically means that there’s something going on severe enough to need that kind of help. Again, I have never had any problems gaining that, but perhaps I’ve just been lucky. I don’t know, but I haven’t found that too difficult, especially around—a lot of people don’t realize that you don’t have to have autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy.
You can have—especially as a child—speech and language, gross motor, like you can have just developmental delay. So please don’t go online and find all the ways that you wouldn’t be eligible, because you absolutely should have a go.
I’m really grateful to the NDIS that we have managed to get on. It’s been life changing for us. We have been doing weekly OT, weekly psych, and being able to access professionals and education that we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, which is pretty cool.
Jane McFadden:
So will you always be eligible, or will your child always have the NDIS? No, you can leave at any time.
The other thing is as well is that your children have got until nine. So, and then the idea is that, you know, they are fine—you know, whether you believe that or not with ADHD, who knows. What are we, are we fine? I have no idea.
But so they’re not on there permanently. It’s up until they’re nine. And look, the dream would be that our children wouldn’t need anything after nine anyway. That’s always the goal, isn’t it? I’d love to be told that my children didn’t need anything.
So that’s kind of how that works. When they tell you that you’ve met accessibility, what that means then is that they do you a plan. So you have to set goals and you create a plan.
And if you’re wondering, oh well, what does this plan mean? So there’s three buckets of funding.
There is the capacity building funding bucket, which is therapy. So what that means is OT, speech, physio—all of your allied health comes out of capacity building. And they kind of figure out what it is that you need and then build a plan around that.
Core funding is great to get, but unlikely for kids under six. The idea of the NDIS is that for kids under six, parents look after them. If your child has a severe disability, that doesn’t seem like normal parental responsibility, but that is how the NDIS see it.
Unfortunately, you can get core. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but it’s very hard. The core funding is things like support workers—which you might think of as babysitters, but they are support workers. They’re paid by the hour—cleaners, folding, washing, you know, meals, that kind of thing you can use that for.
So core is very difficult to get. And obviously it has to be related to the child or the person that the money is allocated for. So, you know, you can’t kind of just go and spend it on general cleaning. It has to be related to the disability or to the participant in some way.
Generally, a plan manager or someone will work with you to be able to link that up quite nicely.
Then there’s also consumables and assistive technologies. Which sounds a lot like an iPad and a trampoline, but they’ve pulled all that stuff back in now with safety.
Some OTs are saying now that you could get an iPad with a letter of recommendation. I haven’t seen that, but look, I could be wrong. Maybe some people do that.
I haven’t thought that you’re allowed to do that anymore. But it can also be sensory toys and, you know, like books, for example.
So I think that is pretty much it for the kids under six. Let me know if I’ve missed anything. I’m pretty confident that that is good.
Jane McFadden:
Let’s go to the children over six. So let’s say you listen to this podcast, your child’s just turned seven or they’re nine or they’re 12, and you’re thinking, oh, I can’t believe that. I can’t believe I just missed that.
If your child is coming up six, remember that you can self-refer to the website. So you don’t have to wait for a diagnosis. If your child is coming up six, you can get in quickly if you can.
But let’s just say your child is over six and you’re thinking, oh, I missed the boat. So the NDIS says that their early childhood approach for children younger than nine—so there’s two ways.
It’s younger than six that have developmental delays. So that’s just like a blanket: we’re not really sure, we just know that they’re not keeping up in these areas, for whatever reason we don’t know.
Or children younger than nine with a disability. Now, that wording is important, because children that are over six, they are wanting to get a diagnosis.
One thing that I think is great is if you don’t have the funds to get a diagnosis, you can access the funds through your early intervention specialist or partner. So what you can do is you can go along and get your plan for OT when they’re younger than six.
And if they’re on there before six, remember you have until they’re nine. So you might at eight still have some funds for OT, and you might be able to use that to maybe get a functional capacities report to then continue on your application.
Or you might be able to use some of your psychology funds to get a report written to get that diagnosis. So a lot of people go get the early intervention because it also gives them access of funds to use and providers that can actually go and get a diagnosis.
I suppose from the NDIS’s point of view—and I can see their point—that if you have a child that’s been accessing or wants to access the NDIS and they’re seven, and they’ve got a few different areas that they really need to work on, and the parent is still saying, oh, we don’t want to get a diagnosis, we don’t really want to get them assessed…
Like at some point, it probably is a good idea to do that. I’ve noticed as my children get older, the things that they’re not great at, there is a lot of comparison to peers at that point.
And you do notice when you’re a mom and your children are not keeping up, they’re doing different things to other kids, it can become more obvious.
Initially, you know, when my daughter was in prep or my son, like you don’t notice it. It’s more later on that you start to realize, oh.
So the NDIS do want you to get a diagnosis, and they do want that or need that to get you accessing over six. If you have a child that is over six and you’re applying to the NDIS, you are going to need to have some type of diagnosis.
So you can look up the list of what diagnoses are accepted to the NDIS, but you really need to have a great reporting there that shows the impact. It does need to be permanent and lifelong in the NDIS’s mind.
The developmental delay in the speech and language, and the kind of like pretty loose entry requirements for someone under six as a developmental delay, is not there for a child over six.
So I think that importance of getting onto early intervention supports before they’re six is super important, because then your child can get early intervention until they’re nine.
That’s probably the main thing that I want to say in this podcast, because I’m not sure if people are aware of that. And if you have a child that’s five and you’re just kind of waiting to see—geez, I’d get them on there, because even if they blow your mind and it all ends up being nothing, what’s the worst thing that you do?
You just say to the NDIS, hey, actually, I think we’re good. Geez, that would just be a great place to be.
Whereas, you know, once you’re six and it becomes a lot harder to access, because it’s much harder to get a diagnosis, it can be hard to come up with the money to pay for that. And also you do need to have something from the list on the NDIS website.
So, you know, developmental delay is no longer on there. You really need to have ASD, an intellectual disability, or some type of physical or mental injury or disability that can kind of be wrapped up into a bow for the NDIS.
Because you’ve got to remember, from their point of view, they’re willing and able to throw money and funds and supports into early intervention. But if you’ve got a child—and this is, I suppose, what they’re trying to do—they’re trying to push people to do that by putting an age maximum on there.
To get people in early, because we know the early intervention does work. So I suppose that for me is the main thing that I really wanted to get across.
Jane McFadden:
Feel free to DM me. I’m going to put in a lot of the links into the episode notes as well.
I think that OT, speechy, psychologist can be incredibly hard to get into and incredibly expensive. So I do know as well that the NDIS pay rate is a bit higher than a private pay. Like, for example, I think a psychology session under the NDIS is like $215.
So a lot of these providers are prioritising the NDIS work, because they’re just making more money in that area.
So, you know, if you’re looking at getting a GP mental health care plan for one of your kids, for example, or for yourself, and you’re trying—and that’s $83 a session, and you can only afford a $50 top up—that’s a very small amount of money for a practitioner or a provider in comparison to an NDIS patient or participant.
So I personally don’t agree with that. I think I love the NDIS, but I have found—and I do believe—that the NDIS have kind of pushed out a lot of the people that, you know, are needing help but don’t have $215, $214 a session.
So for example, I’ve got a friend, her son has a very mild speech impediment, and she just can’t get him in anywhere. And the reason she can’t get him in anywhere is because they’re not prioritising those GP referrals, they’re prioritising the NDIS ones.
So sometimes for me, I personally have a problem with that. But again, it’s another reason to utilise the NDIS if you can.
If you’re in an area that doesn’t have active NDIS—and I know a few people have sent me DMs—the NDIS said that you are to contact them and then they will put you on a list with the providers in that area.
Now, that might sound easy to say on the website, easy for me to say on a podcast, but you might be living in a really small regional town without those supports. And if you are, I suppose—I mean, telehealth is not great with kids, is it?
I feel for people in those regional areas, but that’s the only answer that the NDIS have at that point.
I really hope that this was helpful. I’m really a strong advocate for the NDIS, if you haven’t noticed. I really believe in early intervention. I think it works.
I’ve seen the changes in my children. I’ve seen the accessibility change from when we went from a chronic disease management GP plan, which is called a CDM. So it’s basically like, you get hooked up with a physio and an OT. There’s a small Medicare rebate, you have to pay privately.
I’ve seen the difference in going to a provider like an OT or a physio and saying, hey, I’ve got an NDIS plan. It seems like you can get in a lot easier and you’ve got a lot more choice.
So absolutely, I know that we all have a lot on. And I mean, I have spent since January this year going at this hard—like this is now 25th of September. So we’re nearly nine, 10 months in.
It took me months to get clinical reports from a psychologist. And it took a long time to apply through the early intervention partnership. It took a long time to get the plans.
I still haven’t got the two of the plans back, but I’m waiting on them. And I have been happy with the one that I have received. It’s been nice to finish that up for the moment.
With the plans, you can get them one year or three years, two years. I’ve only just got the one year at the moment, but I’m hoping they’ll just roll me over if I’m happy with it and I can continue with the same kind of plan.
Jane McFadden:
The other thing that I really recommend doing that a lot of people I think look over is with psychologists, for example, you can see a psychologist yourself and talk about your child.
So for me, I don’t really like a lot of these providers having access to my kids. I mean, obviously I have an OT that I trust and I love dearly. I have a couple of providers of course that I will.
But I wouldn’t kind of take my four and a half, or my six-year-old, even my nearly eight-year-old to a psychologist and kind of just drop them off. I don’t know, I’m probably not trusting enough of people that I don’t know.
But generally what I’ll do is I will go to see a psychologist and talk about my child, because then they can give you strategies and plans that you can implement, which very much influences behavior.
Even my daughter who’s nearly eight, I’ve been taking her to an art therapist and she’s lovely. But you know, my daughter’s like—she’s kind of bored. She doesn’t want to do talk therapy. She wants to play. She wants to have fun.
So we’ve been finding that a mobile OT is a little bit better with some of that social-emotional stuff. And I see a psychologist who then tells me kind of like what to say to her, how to handle her.
I think psychologists are amazing and I love them, but just doing it too early is not always beneficial. I mean, I’d love to just drop my kid off and be like, fix them, bring them back to me when they’re good.
But I’ve kind of found that if you do a hands-on approach where you say, hey, this is what’s happening, this is what I’m seeing, this is what I’m doing, this is what my husband’s doing—what can we do differently? How can we handle them differently?
I found if you go to the right psych that you can get a really great result from that. Again, because it’s about your child, then you will be able to access that through the NDIS.
So I think that is really a game-changer for me when I started doing that.
Jane McFadden:
Okay. I hope that you liked that episode.
I’d love a podcast review. If you could jump on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, give me a review, that would really help bring up the rating. I’m currently really trying to build the visibility.
So when people in Australia search ADHD, it’d be great for the Australian podcast to come up before the ones in the UK and the US.
So if you can jump on, if you’re loving this and you’re thinking, wow, that was great, I’d love to do her a favor—that would be what I would ask for.
Thank you so much, guys. I will catch you next time.
Send me DMs if there’s anything I’ve missed. Or again, I’m a mom who accesses the NDIS and I love legislation. I don’t work for the NDIS. I don’t claim that this podcast is perfect.
So if you do find something that you think doesn’t make sense or you found different, please DM me and I’m more than happy to make edits.
Thank you so much, guys. Have a great day.