ABOUT 700 Western Australian children with autism will be invited to take part in a new national trial examining the effects of pre-emptive intervention.
The Inklings trial, which will be run by the National Disability Insurance Agency in partnership with Telethon Kids Institute, will assist families with children showing early behavioural signs of autism.
Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday Bill Shorten (pictured), the National Disablity Insurance Scheme Minister, said the children's autism pilot, would examine whether pre-emptive interventions for children with early behavioural signs of autism could reduce the support they needed later in life.
"It could have exciting prospects for future generations and for early intervention mainstream services outside the NDIS, so that NDIS is not the only life-boat in the ocean," he said.
Shorten also conceded the ballooning NDIS scheme had lost its way and was not delivering the outcomes that Australians expected, as he outlined a suite of changes to improve the $34b program.
The National Disability Insurance Agency's workforce will be boosted and participants will receive multi-year plans to streamline their interactions with the system, while the agency will also target price gouging, dodgy providers and duplication to stop money leaking from the scheme.
"The hard truth is this: the NDIS is not what it should be...and that is why, to enable the NDIS to reach its potential, we need to reboot," Shorten said.
But the Minister said nobody would be kicked off the scheme, nor would diagnoses be removed, as it was a "viable program".
"The scheme will grow each year. That's inevitable," he said.
"The challenge is [making] sure that every dollar that the scheme has is getting to...where it's meant to go," Shorten said.
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