Impairment Categories and Your NDIS Eligible Disabilities
🧠 Understanding the NDIS’s New Impairment Categories
…and how our spreadsheet can help you figure out where you fit
With last year’s new NDIS laws, one of the ways the NDIS will decide your funding — and what you can use it for — is based on which Impairment Categories your eligible disabilities fall under.
Everyone new to the NDIS will be told which impairment categories apply to them. This will be partly based on a list like the one the NDIA recently released through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
These categories really matter — because you’ll only be able to get (and spend) NDIS funds on supports that match your impairment category or categories.
I reckon the fine details aren’t all worked out yet, and the NDIS Review said it might take five years to move everyone onto the “New Framework Plans” using the upcoming Needs Assessments. But we think it’s a good idea to get your head around this stuff now — before it becomes urgent.
📊 A spreadsheet to make things easier
We’ve made a handy spreadsheet (using this FOI-released info) to help you match your or your family member’s condition to the correct impairment category.
There are quite a few columns in this spreadsheet at :
The pink columns show the “automatic” impairment category for most disability diagnoses.
The green columns show additional categories that may or may not apply, depending on individual circumstances.
🤔 A few things don’t sit right…
Some of the matches in the FOI list don’t make a lot of sense.
For example:
Why would someone with Rapidly Progressing Dementia not be eligible for physical supports, even though the condition usually involves serious physical decline — while someone with Alzheimer’s does?
Why would someone with Williams syndrome be listed under psychosocial, but not someone with Down syndrome, when both may have similar mental health support needs?
We’re hoping these aren’t hard and fast rules — and we’ll be watching closely.
🧩 The current impairment categories under the NDIS are:
- Physical: Disabilities that affect the body — like spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, or cerebral palsy.
- Sensory: For people who are blind, have low vision, or are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Intellectual: Intellectual disability, usually diagnosed in childhood, that affects thinking and daily life skills.
- Cognitive: Brain-related impairments — including acquired brain injury, dementia, or neurological illness.
- Psychosocial: Mental health conditions that seriously affect daily life — like schizophrenia, PTSD, or severe depression.
✅ Why the spreadsheet might be helpful:
- Figure out where your diagnosis fits
- Collect the right kind of evidence to add or update impairments
- Be ready to talk to the NDIS about including other disabilities that meet access criteria
We know the NDIS can be confusing — and sometimes overwhelming.
This spreadsheet isn’t designed to be accessible for people with cognitive or intellectual disability, but if you want to understand more, ask a peer, family member or support coordinator to help go through it with you.
Hope you find it useful!
