HOME > ASSESSMENTS > SPECIALIST DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION ASSESSMENT
Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) Assessments
A Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) assessment is an Occupational Therapist’s assessment of how a person’s disability affects their daily life at home, how much support they need through the day and night, and what kind of housing would meet those needs. It looks at mobility and transfers, physical function, cognition, communication, personal care and domestic tasks, and the home the person lives in now.
The result is a written housing needs report. It sets out the person’s functional needs, the supports they need, the housing options that were considered, and the SDA design category the Occupational Therapist recommends and why. The NDIA reads that report when it decides whether SDA can be included in a plan, and Support Coordinators and housing providers use it to find a home that fits.
Participants, family members and carers
For Support Coordinators, plan managers and housing providers
Our Occupational Therapists run Specialist Disability Accommodation assessments for NDIS participants across New South Wales and Tasmania, in the home the person lives in now. Every housing needs report goes through internal quality assurance before it leaves us.
How do I fund a Specialist Disability Accommodation assessment?
An SDA assessment usually comes through the NDIS.
NDIS: funding for the assessment and report usually sits in the Capacity Building part of a plan, and our intake team confirms the category with you.
Self-managed, plan-managed or NDIA-managed: we work with participants under all three.
Privately funded: available while you wait on a plan, and you’ll get a clear picture of the costs before you book.
If you are not sure which funding applies to you, call us on 1800 678 647 or email hello@opt.net.au. We will sort it out before your first appointment.
Not Sure What Fits Your Plan?
1800 678 647
Don't want to call? Click here to
Fill in an enquiry form.
We Can't Wait to Meet You
What a Specialist Disability Accommodation assessment involves
01
What is an SDA assessment?
An SDA assessment is the Occupational Therapy assessment behind a request for Specialist Disability Accommodation. Your Occupational Therapist will spend time with the person in their current home and watch how everyday tasks actually go.
They’ll talk with family and support staff about the support that’s needed across a full day and night. Standardised tools sit alongside that observation where they add something.
The assessment covers physical function, cognition and sensory needs, and the person’s ability to manage personal care, domestic tasks and getting around, because those are the things that decide what a home has to provide.
At Optimum Health Solutions the report is titled either a Housing Needs Assessment for Specialist Disability Accommodation or a Functional Capacity Assessment for Home and Living Support Needs, depending on what the NDIA has asked for.
02
Who qualifies for SDA?
The NDIS describes Specialist Disability Accommodation as housing for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. SDA may be suitable when other home and living supports don’t meet a person’s disability needs.
The NDIA also has to look at how SDA will work with the person’s other supports, and whether it meets the NDIS funding criteria.
That is a high bar, and most NDIS participants live in ordinary housing with other supports.
The NDIS asks that the evidence for a home and living request be recent and come from a relevant treating health professional, such as an Occupational Therapist.
It wants that evidence to explain the person’s daily support and housing needs, including how often and when support is needed each day.
It also wants what the person can and can’t do because of their disability, and which other home and living options have been explored and why they fall short.
03
What does SDA in NDIS mean?
In the NDIS, Specialist Disability Accommodation means the building itself, designed or built for people whose disability needs can’t be met in ordinary housing.
The NDIS describes four design categories. Improved liveability is housing with better physical access and more features for people with sensory, intellectual or cognitive impairments.
Fully accessible is housing with a high level of physical access features for people who have a lot of physical challenges.
Robust is housing built to be safe for the person and others, strong and durable, with less need for repairs and maintenance.
High physical support is housing with a high level of physical access for people who need very high levels of support, with features such as ceiling hoists, backup power or home automation.
Part of the Occupational Therapist’s job is to recommend one of those categories from what their assessment found.
04
What does SDA funding cover?
SDA funding pays for the housing, and the SDA provider receives it.
The NDIS is clear that SDA doesn’t include the supports a person gets in their home for their disability.
Personal care, Supported Independent Living (SIL), Individualised Living Options (ILO) and assistive technology are all funded separately, and participants pay a rent contribution and their own day-to-day costs such as electricity.
That is the practical difference between SDA and SIL, and the assessment has to keep it straight.
SDA is about the walls, the access and the design of the home. SIL is about the staff and the hours of support inside it. Many people need one and some need both.
Where both are in the picture, our Occupational Therapists write the SIL housing needs assessment as well, and the two reports are built to sit together in front of the NDIA.
05
Is SDA funding the same as NDIS?
SDA is one type of NDIS home and living support, so a person needs to be an NDIS participant with a plan before SDA can be considered.
It sits alongside the other home and living supports the NDIS funds, and the NDIA’s first question is always whether one of those would meet the person’s needs instead.
This is why the reports starts from the person’s functional needs and support needs, and then compares housing options against them, including changes to the current home.
Our Occupational Therapists also write Functional Capacity Assessments, home modifications assessments and Supported Independent Living assessments, so the housing needs report can point to whichever of those fits rather than forcing everything through SDA.
Where circumstances have changed since the last plan, the NDIS may ask that the evidence be dated after that plan was approved and describe the changes to daily support, housing needs and functional capacity.
06
How do SDA payments work?
SDA payments go from the NDIS to the SDA provider for the home, under the NDIS’s own SDA pricing arrangements, and the participant pays a rent contribution on top.
The Occupational Therapist’s report doesn’t set the amount. What it does is give the NDIA the design category and the evidence behind it, and the category shapes the kind of home the funding can be used for.
We don’t publish SDA rates on this page, because they belong to the NDIS and change, and because the amount a provider receives is a separate matter from the assessment.
What we can tell you before you book is what the assessment itself will involve for your plan.
Once the report is written, it goes to the person, their Support Coordinator and the NDIA, and the housing search runs from there.
How our Occupational Therapists run the Specialist Disability Accommodation assessment
It starts before the visit. Your Occupational Therapist will confirm the referral and the reason for it, and check the service agreement. Then they’ll call the person and their Support Coordinator to confirm the goals of the assessment and what the report needs to show. If there’s an existing Functional Capacity Assessment, that gets read first, and where it’s older than twelve months (or six months if another provider wrote it) a full assessment is done again.
The assessment itself is done face to face, usually in the person’s current home, with standardised and non-standardised tools, observation across daily tasks, and input from the person, their family and their support staff. Afterwards your Occupational Therapist scores and analyses what was found. Where the report needs input from Physiotherapy, Speech Pathology, Behaviour Support or another discipline, that input is recorded with the contributing practitioner’s registration number.
Specialist Disability Accommodation assessments through the NDIS
The assessment and the housing needs report are funded from Capacity Building, under Improved Daily Living. The SDA itself is a separate home and living support, and the NDIA decides on it from the evidence in the report and the rest of the person’s plan. The NDIS website notes that its home and living pages are being updated for new NDIS legislation, so our Occupational Therapists check the current wording when they write. Support Coordinators and plan managers can refer directly through our Referrers Hub, and we’ll confirm the funding line before the first appointment.
NDIS
Referrals
14 clinics across NSW & Tasmania
Email us
hello@opt.net.au
Speak to us
1800 678 647
Get in Touch.
Where we offer Occupational Therapy
Common questions about Specialist Disability Accommodation assessments
What is an SDA assessment?
Who qualifies for SDA?
What does SDA mean in disability?
What does SDA in NDIS mean?
Is SDA the same as NDIS?
What does SDA pay for?
Who pays for SDA?
How do SDA payments work?
How much does NDIS pay for SDA?
[REVIEWED BY - Dylan to supply name]
[REVIEWER BIO – Dylan to supply]
References
NDIS, What is specialist disability accommodation (SDA), page dated 1 July 2026, fetched 30 August 2026. The page carries the notice “We are updating information on this website to reflect new NDIS legislation.” ndis.gov.au
NDIS, How to ask for home and living supports, page dated 3 May 2026, fetched 30 August 2026. Same notice. ndis.gov.au
NDIS, What are capacity building supports, fetched 30 August 2026. ndis.gov.au
NDIS, Pricing arrangements (lists the SDA pricing arrangements), fetched 30 August 2026. ndis.gov.au
You May Also Like:
Speech Pathology Home Practice
If your child sees a Speech Pathologist once a week for 45 minutes, that session is a small slice of their waking week. The rest of their speech and language
Speech and Language Development
Most parents who ask about speech and language development are not worried about a textbook. They are worried about their own child. Should a 2-year-old be putting words together? Is
Autism and Social Communication: How Joint Attention Builds Language
Every child develops social communication in their own way, and that is especially true for autistic children. What we do know is that the early building blocks, eye contact, turn