Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs)

During the assessment of your access request, the NDIS will evaluate evidence of your disability, which may be provided via assessments or reports from health professionals. On the new Access Request Form, your treating health professional can complete section 2, or complete the NDIS Supporting Evidence Form.

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The NDIS legislation itself states that you need only provide what you have available as evidence for your application. A full Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA) is often expensive and financially out of reach prior to receiving NDIS funding (a full FCA is approximately a 10-14 hour assessment process – including a comprehensive report).

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Demonstrating the impact of your disability can be done in a variety of ways outside of a functional capacity assessment. You can demonstrate the information yourself, or have a treating health professional who knows you (the participant) write a supporting letter addressing the following:

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How your disability impacts your everyday life in the following areas, including a description of how each area is impacted:

• Communication: includes being understood in spoken, written, or sign language, understanding others, and the ability to express needs.

• Social interaction: includes making and keeping friends, interacting with the community, behaving within limits accepted by others, and the ability to cope with feelings and emotions in a social context.

• Learning: includes understanding and remembering information, learning new things, and practicing and using new skills. Learning does not include educational support.

• Mobility: means the ability of a person to move around the home and community to undertake ordinary activities of daily living requiring the use of limbs.

• Self-care: relates to activities related to personal care, hygiene, grooming, feeding oneself, and the ability to care for own health care needs.

• Self-management: means the cognitive capacity to organise one’s life, to plan and make decisions, and to take responsibility for oneself. This includes completing daily tasks, making decisions, problem-solving, and managing finances.

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The NDIA recognises that people will usually have both functional strengths and weaknesses. In recognition of this, it is not necessary to have substantially reduced functional capacity in all six of the life skill areas. A person only needs to have substantially reduced capacity in one area. The NDIA considers both what a person can and cannot do within each life skill area.

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A person is likely to have substantially reduced functional capacity if they usually are not able to function without support for most activities within at least one of the six life skill areas.

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Once your access to the NDIS has been approved, it is recommended that you attend your first planning meeting with a request for funding to complete a full FCA, which can assist in comprehensively identifying your unmet needs, and the support required to help you achieve your goals.

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A Functional Capacity Assessment process involves:

• Review of previous reports by your psychologist, psychiatrist, doctor, and/or other allied health professionals.

• Completion of standardised questionnaires by the child, teen, or adult, and their parents, caregivers, family members, and/or partner.

• Scoring and interpretation of questionnaires by your therapist/allied health professional.

• An initial 90-minute interview prior to undertaking an assessment to determine whether it will be useful to conduct the whole assessment. Your assessment will be conducted in a separate session.

• Between one and three hours of assessment, including semi-structured interviews and use of standardised assessments and measures. You will be advised length of the assessment prior to testing.

• A one-hour feedback session to convey the results of testing and the recommendations arising from the results.

• A comprehensive report prepared by your therapist/allied health professional.

• The fee for the Diagnostic/Functional Assessment includes report preparation (approx. 10-15 pages).

• When booking a Diagnostic/Functional Assessment, please let the admin know if the report will be required for funding purposes, and which type of funding e.g. applying for the NDIS.

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Caroline uses the following standardised assessments to complete a full Functional Capacity Assessment for the NDIS:

• Vineland-3

• Sensory Profile 2.0            

• WHODAS 2.0

• LSP-16

• The REALe (dependant on age)

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