The National Disability Insurance Scheme(NDIS) trial turns 1 tomorrow….for our home state Tasmania it’s been rolled out for the 15-24 year old cohort. The federal government has begun tightening it’s belt on what’s deemed as ‘reasonable and necessary supports’. One item in question is iPads….for us an iPad was the beginning of Veronika developing fine motor skills. Due to her severe hypotonia everywhere, combined with her left hemiplegic cerebral palsy, she couldn’t get a cause and effect out of ‘traditional toys’. We purchased Veronika an iPad out of the carer supplement when she was 2 and a few months old. She went from minimal fine motor skills to isolating her index finger in 3 weeks and we haven’t looked back. Today those fine motor skills of her isolating her index finger is now being used to give Veronika a voice. We have been trialling an Accent 1000 device for the last few weeks, with amazing results. I have now managed to get the app onto her iPad, it’s no where near as good as the Accent 1000, but for now it will have to do. The Accent 1000 has been returned to access communication ready for the next person to trial it….

the link to the story ABC ran on the NDIS turning 1

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-30/concerns-raised-ndis-money-allocation-spending/5556150