Speech pathology therapies under review by the NDIS Evidence Advisory Committee. Which ones, and why?
Big picture:
On 16 February 2026, the NDIS Evidence Advisory Committee (EAC) launched a public consultation into the safety, suitability and value for money of four types of supports. At least three of these supports are of direct interest to speech pathologists who support NDIS participants. Consultation closes on 29 March 2026.
What to watch:
The EAC is examining four types of supports:
- Early intensive behavioural interventions
- Positive behaviour support for older children and adults
- Social skills training for children and young people
- Robot-assisted gait training
Why it matters:
The EAC advises the government on the suitability of supports for NDIS funding. It looks at the evidence base, focusing on safety, cost-effectiveness, quality of evidence, and gaps. Amongst other things, it gives government advice about:
- whether a therapy should be an NDIS Support (i.e. whether it should ever be publicly funded);
- when for whom such therapy should be funded (i.e. for which types of disability); and
- whether the research base for a therapy is low quality and needs more time to “mature”.
Zoom in:
The EAC has published a summary document that explains what it’s looking at in more detail. Among other things, it will look at the following therapies:
- Early intensive behavioural interventions:
- Behavioural Interventions: Applied Behaviour Analysis and its variants, Early Intensive Behavioural Treatment, the Murdoch Early Intervention Program (MEIP)
- Naturalistic developmental behavioural interventions (NDBIs): including the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), and Learning Experiences Alternative Program (LEAP)
- Developmental interventions, such as Developmental Individual Different Relationship-Based (DIR)/Floortime
- Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped children (TEACCH)
- Interestingly, the summary paper does not specifically mention Hanen programs or Inklings, although we would expect them to be reviewed as well.
- Positive behaviour support for older children and adults will include interventions that seek to reduce the negative impact of “behaviours of concern” by some people with a disability.
- Social skills training that aims to help children and young people aged 8-21 years develop social interactions with family, peers and the wider community.
Why review these interventions?
According to its own FAQs, the EAC chooses supports to review “based on the efficacy, safety, and value for money…with a focus on areas where the evidence base is contested, mixed or emerging”.
What will the review involve?
- The EAC considers a range of evidence, including published literature, grey literature, data and lived experience of people with disability collected by public consultation.
- Expert research groups will prepare assessment reports based on the best available evidence for each support. (We would expect, for example, that the EAC will consider existing research syntheses, e.g., AutismCRC’s Interventions for children on the autism spectrum.)
- The EAC will then review and assess the evidence and make recommendations to the government on the safety, suitability and value of supports for NDIS funding.
How long will it take?
According to the EAC’s FAQs, the process may take several months, or more. If the government decides to defund or otherwise restrict a support, it will communicate this clearly before any changes come into effect.
Why it matters:
The EAC’s consultation, review and recommendations will allow the government to make informed decisions about which of these interventions qualify as NDIS supports (for funding), and, potentially, dosage guidance, and service-delivery models. This may have significant implications for how speech pathologists and others deliver these kinds of early intervention and social skills therapies to participants.
What else to watch:
In its summary document, the EAC states that it may consider looking into social skills training for children under 8 years in future assessments. This may have knock-on effects for younger NDIS participants and their families, and may also help inform some Thriving Kids programs and other targeted supports for younger children with low or moderate developmental needs and/or autism.
Next steps:
The EAC has invited participant and provider submissions, including through a survey. Submissions close just before midnight on 29 March 2026.
This article also appears in a recent issue of Banter Booster, our free newsletter navigating problems for busy speech pathologists, one week at a time.
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