“Listening to me and acting on what I say I need from the NDIS.” Commentary on “The National Disability Insurance Scheme: voices of adults with intellectual disabilities” (Lloyd et al., 2022)

I used to look through a window, and could see through to what I wanted, but not get there. NDIS gave me some money, and it meant I could open a door. Through the door, you get to your dreams.

 Gavin Burner knows how NDIS support can change his life.

We are researchers with and without intellectual disabilities, who work together to learn from the experiences of people with disabilities. Sally Robinson works at Flinders University. Gavin Burner gives Sally advice about the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities. Karen Fisher works at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Karen meets online with Gavin and Sally to find out how to improve the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The three of us discussed the article by Lloyd et al. (2022) published in this Issue of Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (RAPIDD), so we could comment about people’s experiences of trying to tell other people about what they want in their NDIS plan. In this Commentary, we write about what we learnt from the Lloyd et al. article. We comment about what happens when other people listen to people with intellectual disabilities and act on what they say they need. These experiences tell us about what needs to change to make the NDIS better.

When we say NDIS in this Commentary, we mean the three parts of the NDIS system: the NDIS service providers for the support services, the NDIS planners, and the NDIA (National Disability Insurance Agency)...