Building your evidence pack

Access applications are decided on evidence. Nothing else. The delegate who reads your child's file has never met them. They are trying to work out, from the documents in front of them, whether your child meets a fairly specific legal test. If the evidence is vague, generic, or missing the functional piece, they will say no — regardless of how clear the need is to you.

The four documents that do most of the work

A strong evidence pack usually contains four things.

1. 1A paediatrician or psychiatrist letter — confirms diagnosis (or developmental delay), states likely permanence, explains functional impact.
2. 2Allied health assessment reports — speech, OT, psychology, physio as relevant. Ideally with standardised scores.
3. 3A functional capacity report — specifically addresses the NDIS domains (communication, social interaction, learning, mobility, self-care, self-management).
4. 4Parent functional observations — your written account of what the child can and can't do day-to-day.

You don't always need all four. A child with a List A diagnosis often only needs the paediatric letter. A child under 9 with clear developmental delay may need only the allied health reports and parent observations. A borderline case over 9 usually benefits from all four.

What a good paediatrician letter looks like

Most paediatricians write NDIS letters regularly. Some write them well; some write them too briefly. The best letters cover, in order:

1. 1The child's full name, date of birth, Medicare number.
2. 2The diagnosis (or 'developmental delay affecting X, Y, Z' for under-9s).
3. 3A sentence on likely permanence — 'this is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition' or 'delay is likely to be persistent and to require ongoing multidisciplinary support'.
4. 4At least one paragraph on functional impact — what the diagnosis means for this child at this age.
5. 5The supports currently in place, and what additional supports are recommended.
6. 6A sentence on why the NDIS is the appropriate funding body — i.e. what the child needs is beyond what Medicare or schools provide.

What a good allied health report looks like

Allied health reports do the functional heavy lifting. The best ones include standardised assessment results, specific examples, and explicit links to the NDIS functional domains.

Ask your clinician for:

• Standardised test name, score, percentile, and age-equivalent where possible (e.g. 'CELF-5 Core Language Score: 68, 2nd percentile, age-equivalent 3 years 4 months in a child aged 5 years 7 months').
• Narrative observations from at least two settings (clinic, home, kinder/school).
• Explicit impact statements for each NDIS domain they can speak to — communication for speech, self-care and self-management for OT, social interaction for psychology.
• Recommended supports, by type and dosage (e.g. 'weekly 45-minute speech therapy, individual, plus fortnightly parent coaching, for minimum 12 months').

What a Functional Capacity Report is, and when you need one

A Functional Capacity Report (FCR) is a structured document, usually written by an OT or psychologist, that walks through each of the NDIS functional domains and rates current capacity. These are essential for most over-9 applications and for borderline under-9 ones.

A good FCR covers:

• Mobility — how your child gets around their environment.
• Communication — expressive and receptive language, social communication, use of augmentative communication if relevant.
• Social interaction — ability to initiate, sustain, and navigate social exchanges age-appropriately.
• Learning — ability to acquire, retain, and apply new information; attention and executive function where relevant.
• Self-care — dressing, toileting, feeding, hygiene, at the level expected for age.
• Self-management — planning, starting, and finishing age-appropriate tasks; emotional regulation; safety awareness.

Cost: FCRs typically run $700–$1500 and require 2–3 hours of clinician time. If cost is prohibitive, speak to your Partner/LAC — sometimes a combined OT/psychology report does similar work for less.

Parent functional observations — the document parents underestimate

You are the expert on your child. The NDIA reads parent observations. Write them. Two pages is plenty.

Structure them around the NDIS domains. For each domain, give one to three specific, named examples — 'at dinner on Tuesday nights, when we…' rather than 'sometimes has trouble with…'. Specific, dated, sensory is far more persuasive than general and summary.

A worked example

'In the morning getting ready for school, my 7-year-old daughter cannot independently put on her uniform, brush her hair, or pack her bag. Each task requires at least three verbal prompts, often physical guidance. On a typical morning this adds 35–45 minutes to our routine compared with her 5-year-old brother, who completes the same tasks without prompting. Over the last six months this has worsened, not improved, despite consistent routines and visual schedules. Her OT (attached assessment) attributes this to a combination of executive function delay and sensory processing difficulty.'

That paragraph does more than a dozen generic sentences. It is specific, comparative, dated, and links to professional assessment.

Common evidence mistakes that get applications rejected

• Letters that list the diagnosis but not the functional impact.
• Letters that describe the family's distress rather than the child's functional capacity — parents sometimes submit deeply moving accounts of their own exhaustion. The NDIA cannot fund on this basis. Parent impact goes in a separate supports-for-families conversation.
• Assessments that are more than two years old — the NDIA usually wants evidence within 12 months, occasionally 24 months for stable conditions.
• Evidence from a single clinician (e.g. speech only, no paediatric, no parent narrative).
• Cookie-cutter reports where the same generic paragraph clearly appears in multiple applications from the same clinic.
• Missing the 'why NDIS, not Medicare or schools' framing — a report that describes what the child needs but doesn't explain why the NDIS is the right funding lane.

If you can't afford the full evidence pack

This is a real constraint. A full evidence pack for an older child can cost $1500–$4000 out of pocket before NDIS approval. Options:

• Medicare Chronic Disease Management Plan — up to 5 allied health sessions per year with partial rebate. Can pay for a speech or OT assessment.
• State-funded early intervention programs — many states fund assessments for children aged 0–6 through MCH or paediatric early intervention services.
• Mental Health Care Plan — 10 psychology sessions per year, rebated. Can fund a psychological assessment for borderline cases.
• Hospital outpatient clinics — public, free, but long waits (6–18 months).
• Partner/LAC-funded evidence — in some regions, if you're working with a Partner or LAC, they can fund a functional assessment directly as part of the access process. Ask.