NDIS Developmental Education
What NDIS developmental education involves, the current hourly price limits, and how sessions are claimed.
Developmental educators are disability-specialist teachers. They break skills into teachable steps - personal care routines, money handling, travel training, social scripts, household tasks - and coach you or your child through them, adjusting the teaching approach to how you learn best.
The profession has its own hourly item in the Support Catalogue at the standard therapy rate, with an early-childhood counterpart, and a matching employment-support item for workplace contexts. The rates table below carries the current price limits for the core items.
Does the NDIS fund developmental education?
The NDIS funds supports it decides are reasonable and necessary for your goals. The same item can be approved for one participant and not another, so no list or website can tell you what your plan will include.
Developmental Education appears under Improved Daily Living (Capacity Building) in the current NDIS Support Catalogue. Whether developmental education supports can be claimed depends on your individual plan, your goals, and how your funding is managed. Your plan manager or support coordinator can confirm what applies to you.
If you intend to claim, check with your plan manager or support coordinator before purchasing.
NDIS developmental education rates: current price limits
Each price limit below is the most a provider can charge for that item under managed arrangements. The agreed price in your service agreement can sit anywhere up to it.
| Item code | Support item | Unit | National limit | Remote (MMM 6) | Very remote (MMM 7) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
15_613_0128_1_3 | Therapy - Developmental Educator - Direct Service | per hour | $193.99 | $271.59 | $290.99 |
15_613_0118_1_3 | ECI Professional - Developmental educator - Direct Service | per hour | $193.99 | $271.59 | $290.99 |
Source: NDIS Support Catalogue, effective . Price limits are GST-exclusive per the Pricing Arrangements.
How developmental education is claimed
Supports are billed against the item codes above, at or below the price limit, under a service agreement that records the agreed price, how provider travel is charged, and the cancellation terms. Invoices quote the item code, the date, the quantity, and the rate - which is what plan managers check before paying.
How your plan is managed - self-managed, plan-managed, or agency-managed - changes who you can buy from and how invoices are paid. Your plan documents state which applies to you. Agency-managed participants generally need to purchase through registered NDIS providers. Self-managed and plan-managed participants can buy from any suitable supplier.
| Claiming rule | What the Pricing Arrangements say |
|---|---|
| Provider travel time | Up to 30 minutes each way per worker in MMM 1-3 areas; up to 60 minutes in MMM 4-5; no time limit in Remote (MMM 6) and Very Remote (MMM 7) areas. |
| Travel price limit | Travel time is claimable at up to 50% of the item's hourly price limit, plus non-labour costs (e.g. per-kilometre vehicle costs) per the PAPL worked examples. |
| Short-notice cancellation | Notice window: 7 days for disability support worker supports; 2 clear business days for other supports. A late cancellation or no-show can be billed at up to 100% of the agreed fee if the provider could not find other billable work (and pays the worker); providers may waive the fee. Terms must be documented in the service agreement. |
| Remote loadings | National price limits carry a 40% loading in Remote (MMM 6) areas and a 50% loading in Very Remote (MMM 7) areas, as the loaded columns in the rates table show. |
Source: NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits (claiming rules narrative, published ), via ndis.gov.au pricing arrangements. Read .
Provider registration
The item codes above carry registration group 0128 in their item numbers - the group a provider registers for with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to deliver this service. The Commission's public register records who holds it.
Invoices and agreements for developmental education
Two documents carry the admin: the service agreement sets the price, travel billing, and cancellation terms before supports start, and the invoice quotes the item code and rate so the claim goes through first time.
Find developmental education providers
The provider directory is where our provider coverage lives, organised by service and state. Whoever you shortlist, verify their registration status on the NDIS Commission's public register before signing an agreement.
NDIS developmental education FAQs
What does a developmental educator cost under the NDIS?
Developmental education bills hourly at the standard therapy price limit shown in the table above, with loaded limits for remote and very remote delivery. The Support Catalogue sets the ceiling; your service agreement sets the actual rate and how travel or report time is handled.
Does the NDIS fund developmental education?
The NDIS funds supports it decides are reasonable and necessary for your goals. The same item can be approved for one participant and not another, so no list or website can tell you what your plan will include. If you intend to claim, check with your plan manager or support coordinator before purchasing.
How is a developmental educator different from a support worker?
A support worker helps you do a task; a developmental educator teaches you to do it yourself, with a structured teaching plan and progress review. They bill on different catalogue items at different rates - teaching on the therapy item above, support work on the hourly support items covered on our support work page.
Can developmental education run at school or home?
Sessions run wherever the skill lives - home for routines, community for travel training, workplaces for job tasks. School delivery needs the school's agreement and sits alongside, never instead of, the education system's own responsibilities. Travel billing follows the provider travel rules in the claiming table above.