Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Services
A functional capacity assessment describes what a child can currently do, what is harder than it should be, and what support meaningfully changes the picture. It is not a verdict on the child or on the family. It is a clinical document — produced by a clinician with the right training, based on direct observation and structured information from the people who know the child best — written so it can be acted on.
In this pathway, the assessment is used for school accommodations, NDIS planning, multi-team coordination, and clinical handover. It sits alongside diagnostic work rather than replacing it. A diagnosis can name a condition; the functional capacity assessment describes how that condition is showing up in the actual life of this child, across the actual environments they spend time in.
This service is for families seeking formal documentation of their child's functional support needs — for an NDIS plan, a school review, a clinical handover, or as a baseline for ongoing care. It is also for young people whose previous assessments have not translated into the practical support they need.
The clinician reads the existing picture before the assessment begins. Previous diagnostic and developmental reports, current medical context, school history, prior NDIS or school documentation, parent and young person concerns. The point is for the assessment to add to the picture, not to repeat it.
The assessment includes structured observation of the child across relevant tasks — typically across home and clinical settings, with input from school where appropriate. The aim is to see what the child is actually doing under ordinary load.
Parent or carer information is gathered through validated tools and structured interview rather than impression. Where adolescent self-report is appropriate and consented, that is included alongside.
Findings are read across the broader picture — medical, sensory, developmental, social, school. A capacity finding is not a fixed feature of the child; it is a description of where the child is right now, against environments that may or may not be supporting them.
The report describes current function, support needs, and the changes that improve the picture. It is written in language that schools, NDIS planners, allied health colleagues and the family can use. The aim is not a long document; it is a useful one.
The report is held inside the biio. record so the rest of the team — paediatric medicine, OT, psychology, physiotherapy — can build on the same picture. Where ongoing reassessment is appropriate (typical for school transitions, NDIS reviews, or significant change), that is planned explicitly.
When the assessment work is going well, the resulting report supports real decisions. School accommodations become more specific because the report describes the actual functional picture. NDIS planning becomes more accurate because the report names what support changes look like in this child's life. Clinical handover becomes cleaner because the next clinician inherits a picture rather than a category.
A functional capacity assessment does not change what a child can do. It does not, by itself, secure NDIS funding, school support, or a particular pathway — those decisions are made by the relevant body, not by the assessment. What the assessment provides is the clearest possible description of the child's current functional picture, written so the people deciding next steps have an accurate document in front of them.