Jay Weatherill, Andrew Whitehouse | NDIS would greatly benefit from universal childcare reform

According to research done here in Australia and the UK that models early identification and intervention for autistic children, this investment in children will not only pay off for them personally, but also has the potential to reduce disability for the largest participant group in the NDIS and therefore make the scheme financially sustainable.

Autism is the most prominent disability category within the NDIS.

It is thought the growth has largely been caused by the broadening of diagnostic criteria and greater awareness of the condition.

In the late 1990s about 1 in 200 children were diagnosed with autism - now it's believed to be around 1 in 50 and people with autism making up 34 per cent of NDIS participants.

There are very likely other disabilities where early diagnosis and intervention can also have life-changing consequences.

It is already established that access to early childhood education has major developmental benefits for all children.

But the story is out with autism, and it has already seen a major policy shift in the UK.

Australia needs to understand the science and build a new approach to supporting autistic children into its reform of the early education and childcare system.

A study conducted at the Telethon Kids Institute, the Child and Adolescent Health Service in Perth and at La Trobe University in Melbourne with more than 100 babies, showed that early identification and intervention at that very young age led to significant reductions in the social communication difficulties associated with autism.

This finding mirrors research from the UK.

The Australian study showed the developmental improvement from therapy was so large that three times fewer children met diagnostic criteria for autism at age three.

Several NHS Trusts in the UK have now adopted this pre-emptive intervention model for autism that begins with identifying disability and supporting development in the first year of life rather than the wait-and-see approach in Australia that doesn't seek to provide intervention until a diagnosis is made at three or four years old.

The current Australian system is based on evidence from 20 years ago.

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Today, we know that children's brains develop rapidly and that waiting means the opportunity for a big reduction in disability is lost.

Australia needs to integrate children and family health, and education services, into a universal early education and childcare system so that disability is identified and addressed early to enable all children to get the benefits of early learning.

If Australia adopts a universal system as the Prime Minister promises, the new system could be a place where early identification and developmental supports can be widely accessible.

The good news is that both state and federal governments are on the path to early learning reform and understand the economic benefits for families and the educational benefits for children.

This research takes this further by showing that there is yet another layer of benefits that early education and intervention bring - reducing substantially the level of disability experienced by Australian children and making the NDIS a financially sustainable program.

Given the multiple layers of benefits to children, families, the economy and core government programs such as the NDIS, it is shaping as the most significant reform of this century.