What evidence do you need for an NDIS plan?
The reports that count, the observations that hold weight, and how to keep them straight
The NDIS has always called itself evidence-based. What is changing now is the kind of evidence that counts. Less weight on a diagnosis written years ago. More weight on the function of your child, day to day, in their real life. Here is what to gather, and why.
You probably already have more of this evidence than you think. The work is in gathering it into one place, not creating it from scratch.
Parents come to NDIS reviews carrying paper folders, email threads, half-remembered specialist letters and a quiet sense of dread. The job is not to produce a thicker folder. The job is to build a picture of your child that holds together. Clinical, educational, and lived.
That picture has three layers. We will walk through each.
The shift from diagnosis to function
For a long time, an NDIS plan was anchored to the report that named a condition. That mattered, and it still does. A diagnosis is still part of how a plan starts.
But the question reviewers are increasingly asking has changed. It is no longer "what is the condition?" It is "what is the impact on this child's daily participation, and what support do they need to do the things their peers are doing?"
That shift matters. Diagnoses are blunt. Two children with the same diagnosis can need very different support. Function is a sharper tool. Harder to evidence, but truer to the child.
Evidence is the new currency of the NDIS. Function over diagnosis. Continuity over snapshots. The family's view of the child now carries weight.
How indi helps: indi was built around function. Quick observations of what your child can do, can't do, and is working on, captured the moment they happen. Over weeks and months it adds up to the picture of function reviewers are looking for.
Layer one: the clinical reports
These are the documents from health professionals. They establish the diagnosis (where relevant) and provide professional opinion on what your child needs. They still carry weight, especially when they describe function rather than just labels.
- Paediatrician or specialist report. The diagnostic letter, plus any follow-up correspondence. If yours is more than two years old and there have been significant changes, consider booking a review appointment.
- Therapy reports. Speech, OT, psych, physio. Whoever is involved. The strongest ones describe what the child can do now, what they are working on, and where they need support to participate.
- Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA). Not every plan needs one, but where it has been done, it is often the single most influential document in the review. An FCA describes function explicitly in NDIS terms.
- Allied-health goal documents. The goals your therapists set with you, and any progress notes against them. Reviewers can see continuity at a glance.
Practical note: ask your treating clinicians to write to function. A report that says "Maya can hold a pencil but cannot yet form letters independently and needs verbal prompting for fine-motor sequencing tasks" is more useful than one that only lists a diagnostic code.
How indi helps: forward reports to indi by email and they land in your child's timeline, tagged and searchable. Nothing gets lost between providers who never spoke. When the review comes, the full clinical picture is one tap away.
Layer two: the everyday evidence
Clinicians see your child for an hour a week. Function gets built in the other 167. At home, at school, in the playground. That is where the strongest evidence of impact lives, and it is also where most families assume their input doesn't count.
It does. The recent direction of the NDIS, and the broader reform, has been to give more weight to what the family and educators around the child are actually seeing.
- School or kindy communication. The email from the teacher about lunchtime. The note about a hard transition. The end-of-term report. These all describe function in a setting outside the home.
- Parent observations. The wins. The meltdowns. The question they asked that surprised you. The first time they tried something new. Short, dated, and specific is best.
- Photos and short videos. A 20-second clip of how your child holds a spoon, climbs into the car, or copes with a noisy waiting room can communicate more than a paragraph.
- Logs of how often support is needed. Not a spreadsheet. Just an honest sense of when, how often, and how long. Reviewers know real life isn't clean data.
How indi helps: if you have a child, you are already capturing evidence every day. indi turns the everyday into evidence. Voice notes, quick observations, photos, without making it feel like one more job.
Layer three: the picture across the village
The strongest plans have something subtle in common. The paediatrician, the OT, the speech pathologist, the kindy teacher and the parent are all describing the same child in compatible language. Reviewers feel it. Inconsistency reads as uncertainty, even when it is just a side-effect of providers working in silos.
Function doesn't exist in isolation. A child's outcomes are shaped by their village. Parents, educators and therapists. And the village needs to see what each other sees to work together.
The practical job is making sure the people around your child can read each other's notes, follow up on the same goals, and reference the same observations when they write for the review.
How indi helps: indi gives your child's village line of sight into the same picture. You, your partner, grandparents, therapists, educators. Reports land in one timeline. Observations tag against goals. When the clinicians write to the reviewer, the evidence is already there.
What to do this month
- Find what you already have. Last paediatrician letter, most recent therapy reports, current plan, anything from school. Get them into one place. Folder, drive, app, whatever you will actually open later.
- Note the gaps. Is the diagnostic letter older than two years and out of date? Do you have a Functional Capacity Assessment? Are any of your therapy progress reports more than 12 months old?
- Start logging the everyday. Even three or four short observations a week. The pattern matters more than any single entry.
- Ask your clinicians to write to function. The shift in framing is well known in allied health. Most clinicians will appreciate the prompt.
You don't need a perfect system to start. You need a place to put one observation today. Continuity comes from beginning, not from planning.