Executive Summary
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative.
This submission addresses three Terms of Reference:
- The effectiveness of current and previous programs that identify children with developmental delay (DD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or both, with mild to moderate support needs, and support them and their families.
- Identifying gaps in workforce support and training required to deliver Thriving Kids.
- Identifying mechanisms that would allow a seamless transition through mainstream systems for all children with mild to moderate support needs.
I submit evidence from an innovative, neuroplasticity-based program that directly strengthens executive functions and other cognitive processes with diagnoses of autism, developmental delay, and learning disabilities. By improving underlying brain function, children can engage in education and community life at age-appropriate levels.
It is important to clarify scope: this program is not designed to address autism itself. However, many autistic children experience co-occurring learning difficulties or executive function weaknesses that limit participation in school. Strengthening cognition reduces frustration, increases independence, and improves academic and social participation for these children. Similarly, children with developmental delay may progress more slowly than peers with learning disabilities yet still make meaningful progress. Beginning as early as age six ensures those gains accumulate during critical early years of schooling.
After more than 40 years in human services, I have found this program to be unique in its consistent and effective ability to alter life trajectories for children with learning challenges.
Key points:
- Current educational and therapeutic approaches often assume learning problems are lifelong and can only be worked around. This leaves many children at risk of long-term disadvantage.
- Advances in neuroscience and neuroplasticity show that it is possible to address underlying causes of learning difficulties and improve cognitive capacity.
- The Arrowsmith Program, developed by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, uses structured cognitive exercises to strengthen multiple key functions underlying learning, executive functioning, and behaviour.
- Evidence and case studies demonstrate that children with mild to moderate support needs make significant progress—academically, socially, and emotionally—when underlying cognitive weaknesses are addressed.
- Wider system benefits include reduced demand on allied health, lower rates of mental health difficulties, better educational outcomes, and improved long-term workforce participation.
Recommendations
- Fund a demonstration project of neuroplasticity-based interventions such as the Arrowsmith Program within the Thriving Kids framework.
- Include cognitive capacity-building programs within the scope of Thriving Kids supports.
- Develop workforce training pathways for educators and allied health staff in neuroplasticity-based approaches.
- Commission independent evaluation of program impact on academic, wellbeing, and community outcomes.
Section 1: Current Landscape and Challenges
The Melbourne Declaration (2008) affirmed Australia’s commitment to equitable education for all children. Yet, despite progress, a significant group of children remain unable to access education equally. Estimates suggest 10–20% of students cannot learn to their potential within mainstream classrooms.
Within this group are children with mild to moderate autism, developmental delay, and other neurodevelopmental diagnoses such as dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia, and auditory processing disorder. While schools have embraced inclusion, the dominant model assumes that if provided with positive environments and quality teaching, all children will learn in broadly the same way. This is not the reality for many children whose brains process, store, and retrieve information differently.
For these children, participation in mainstream classrooms without targeted support often leads to cumulative failure, diminished confidence, and mental health challenges. Families frequently describe feeling unsupported, forced into adversarial relationships with schools, or considering homeschooling despite wanting their children to thrive in inclusive environments.
2. Gaps and Challenges in Current Approaches
Australia has invested significantly in programs and initiatives aimed at supporting children with developmental delay, autism, and related support needs. These programs often emphasise early identification, access to therapies, and provision of supports in educational and home settings.
While these are well-intentioned and have offered relief for many families, several systemic challenges remain:
a) Identification without effective remediation Early identification is vital, but for many children, the outcome of assessment is a label and a pathway to services that focus on management rather than transformation. Assessments tend to catalogue what a child cannot do, but rarely lead to interventions that strengthen the underlying brain functions responsible for the difficulty. Families often receive extensive reports and plans, yet remain without an intervention that truly shifts the trajectory of their child’s learning and development.
b) Fragmentation of services Children with developmental challenges are often referred to a wide array of therapies: occupational therapy, speech pathology, psychology, behaviour management, and/or tutoring. These services are valuable in their scope, yet they frequently operate in isolation
from one another, each addressing symptoms within its domain. This fragmented model results in duplication of assessments, lack of communication between providers, and gaps in addressing the root cause of difficulties. Parents often describe the process as exhausting, expensive, and disjointed.
c) Plateauing of progress Many children make some gains through therapy, but these often plateau. Despite years of intervention, children remain significantly behind peers academically and socially. For families, this means ongoing reliance on services, ongoing funding needs, and persistent anxiety about their child’s future independence. For systems, it means long-term resourcing commitments without evidence of transformation.
d) Emotional and behavioural impact The limitations of current approaches do not only manifest academically. Children who remain unable to keep up with peers experience daily failure, which compounds into low self-esteem, anxiety, frustration, and in many cases, behavioural difficulties. Schools and families are then directed to behaviour management strategies which often become another costly layer of support—without changing the cognitive limitations driving the behaviours in the first place.
e) Workforce pressures The demand for allied health professionals far exceeds supply, particularly in regional and remote areas. This leaves many children on long waitlists or receiving minimal service hours. Even when supports are accessible, the intensity required to create meaningful change is rarely possible within existing resourcing models. This creates inequity: children in metropolitan, well-resourced families can access a patchwork of supports, while those in disadvantaged contexts miss out almost entirely.
f) Unsustainable costs The financial implications of ongoing therapy, behaviour management plans, and school-based supports are substantial—for governments, schools, and families. Too often, significant investment is made with limited long-term change. This perpetuates dependency rather than building capacity in the child.
In sum, the gap is clear: despite layers of diagnosis, planning, and service delivery, too many children remain fundamentally unprepared for successful, independent participation in learning and life.
3. The Missing Piece: Cognitive Capacity Building
What is consistently overlooked in current approaches is the brain itself—the set of cognitive capacities that underlie every skill, behaviour, and learning outcome. Reading, writing, problem-solving, emotional regulation, and social interaction all depend on the brain’s ability to process, store, and integrate information. When these foundational functions are weak, the child struggles regardless of how much support is layered around them.
a) Distinguishing skills from capacities Most interventions focus on teaching skills: how to decode words, how to structure a sentence, how to regulate behaviour using external cues. While valuable, these approaches assume the underlying cognitive machinery is ready to perform the skill. For many children, it is not. A child may be taught the rules of reading repeatedly, but without sufficient attention, memory, or reasoning ability, progress is slow and fragile. It is akin to teaching someone to run before their muscles are strong enough to support them.
b) Neuroplasticity and targeted intervention Decades of neuroscience research have demonstrated the brain’s capacity to change. Neuroplasticity means that targeted, intensive, and repetitive cognitive activity can strengthen weak brain functions. By directly building the capacity of memory, processing, reasoning, and attention, we equip the child to engage with and benefit from the very therapies and teaching they previously struggled to access. This is not about “working around” a disability but about building the capacity that underpins learning itself.
c) Impact across domains When underlying capacities are strengthened, the effects cascade across multiple areas:
- Academic: literacy, numeracy, comprehension, and problem-solving accelerate because the brain is better able to process and apply instruction.
- Behavioural: many so-called behavioural problems diminish when frustration decreases and comprehension increases.
- Emotional: confidence, resilience, and willingness to engage rise as children experience success instead of failure.
- Social: stronger processing allows children to interpret social cues, remember conversations, and participate more fully in peer interactions.
d) Cost-effectiveness and sustainability Interventions that build cognitive capacity reduce reliance on multiple overlapping services.
Rather than requiring lifelong scaffolding, children develop the independence to function within mainstream classrooms, reducing demand on aides, therapists, and behaviour plans. This is a sustainable model that delivers value for families and for the system as a whole.
e) Equity and access Because cognitive capacity building can be delivered in structured, school-based or community-based formats, it is more scalable than relying solely on specialist therapy hours. This has the potential to reduce inequities between urban and regional children, and between families with differing financial resources.
f) A paradigm shift in child support The missing piece, therefore, is not more diagnosis, more therapy, or more reports. It is a shift towards strengthening the very organ of learning—the brain. By embedding cognitive capacity building within the continuum of supports for children with developmental delays and autism, we move from a management model to a transformation model. Children are not left to adapt to their limitations but, instead, given the chance to reduce those limitations and thrive.
4. Case Studies
Case Study A: From Years of Struggle to Literacy in One Term
Child A commenced the program at age 7. Prior to this, he had been attending a language development centre for two years. Despite consistent intervention and specialist support, his progress towards literacy was marginal, and he remained functionally unable to read at a level commensurate with his peers.
Although Child A did not have a formal diagnosis, his profile was consistent with children who would likely be eligible for NDIS support—he displayed multiple characteristics associated with developmental delay, including poor working memory, slow processing speed, and difficulties with attention and information retention. His family reported increasing frustration, low self-esteem, and anxiety around schooling.
Within one term of commencing a single targeted cognitive exercise, Child A was able to read at an age-appropriate level. This was not due to a change in his motivation or teaching style, but to the strengthening of specific underlying cognitive functions required for reading.
The family reported that the emotional impact was also significant. His confidence improved markedly, and his willingness to attempt new challenges grew. In this case, years of stagnation through conventional interventions were transformed into rapid progress once the cognitive root cause was addressed.
Case Study B: Overcoming Developmental Delay and Regaining Joy in Learning
Child B began the program in March at age 7, with a diagnosis of developmental delay. Since infancy, he had received multiple therapies, including occupational therapy (OT) and speech therapy, but progress remained minimal. By the time he commenced the program, his emotional state was fragile: he was frequently tearful, increasingly resistant to attending school, and beginning to show signs of school-related anxiety. His parents reported that mornings had become a battle, and his confidence was deteriorating.
At the point of entry, Child B’s difficulties included poor auditory memory, slow processing of verbal instructions, and difficulty integrating concepts. These challenges left him lagging significantly behind peers and often unable to complete classwork without one-on-one support.
After just three months in the program, a multi-disciplinary review was held with his classroom teacher, occupational therapist, and speech pathologist. All three professionals independently noted an extraordinary improvement. His teacher remarked she had “never seen anything like it” in terms of the speed and scope of his development. The consensus was that Child B no longer required ongoing OT or speech therapy—a remarkable outcome given years of previous reliance on these services.
Academically, Child B quickly rose to above the class average in his understanding of concepts. His teacher, who had previously only asked him questions she knew he could answer (to protect him from the distress of failure), was now able to engage him in open questioning. For the first time, he was not only capable of handling uncertainty but could tolerate making mistakes—a profound shift in both cognitive ability and resilience.
The impact on his wellbeing was striking. He became an active participant in class, displayed growing independence in tasks, and demonstrated pride in his achievements. This case shows how strengthening cognitive functions not only improved academic performance but also reduced reliance on health services, with benefits cascading across education, family, and wellbeing domains.
Case Study C: Transforming Behaviour and Learning for a Child with ASD and ADD
Child C began the program at age 7 with formal diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD). At the time, the school and family were in the process of organising a behaviour management plan with a budget exceeding $10,000. His mother reported feeling overwhelmed by the extensive process of assessments, reports, and recommendations, yet still had no clarity on what the actual behavioural plan would involve.
Child C’s challenges were complex and severe. He struggled to understand or process spoken language, often could not remember even simple instructions, and had almost no capacity to interpret non-verbal cues. His difficulty with information processing left him lost in the classroom environment, unable to keep up with peers. His behavioural difficulties were significant: meltdowns were frequent, intense, and disruptive, often leaving him, his family, and his teachers distressed, confused and exhausted.
After three months in a cognitive program, there was a noticeable and significant reduction in the frequency and intensity of his meltdowns. His parents reported calmer behaviour at home, and his teacher observed that he was more settled and able to sustain attention during class activities.
Over the longer term, his academic gains were equally remarkable. He progressed from below age-appropriate achievement in Year 2 to performing on track in Year 3. Within a short period, he advanced five reading levels and surpassed class averages in mathematics—subjects where previously he had been falling further and further behind.
Instead of living in constant crisis management, his parents could see a hopeful trajectory for their son. The school shifted its focus from managing behaviour to supporting learning. Child C is now thriving in mainstream school, academically and socially, without the need for an expensive and ongoing behaviour plan.
It is important to note that while C’s autistic features remained part of his profile, the strengthening of his underlying cognitive functions dramatically reduced his distress, improved his academic trajectory, and allowed him to participate more fully in school life. His family reported that the gains in day-to-day functioning — such as reduced meltdowns, better recall, and greater confidence — had transformed his experience of school.
This case demonstrates the significant cost savings possible when interventions target the root cause of cognitive and behavioural challenges, as well as the life-changing outcomes for the child and family.
5. Recommendations
The Thriving Kids Initiative presents an opportunity to move beyond managing symptoms and towards building the capacities that enable children to thrive in learning, relationships, and life. Based on the evidence presented, I recommend the following:
1. Integrate Cognitive Capacity Building into the Support Continuum Current approaches overwhelmingly focus on therapies that address symptoms (e.g., speech articulation, behaviour management, occupational skills). While important, these do not address the underlying brain functions that drive learning and development. Cognitive capacity programs, grounded in neuroplasticity, should be explicitly included within the suite of interventions funded and endorsed by the Thriving Kids Initiative.
2. Pilot and Evaluate Neuroplastic Interventions within Schools To establish robust evidence, the Initiative should support pilot programs embedding cognitive capacity interventions in both mainstream and specialist education settings. These pilots should be independently evaluated to measure impact on literacy, numeracy, behaviour, wellbeing, and cost-effectiveness. Such pilots would demonstrate whether strengthening the brain directly reduces reliance on multiple therapies and support services.
3. Provide Training and Professional Development for Educators and Practitioners Educators, allied health professionals, and case managers often lack awareness of cognitive capacity as a modifiable factor. Professional learning modules should be developed to increase understanding of:
- The difference between skills and capacities.
- The role of neuroplasticity in child development.
- Practical ways to integrate cognitive strengthening into classrooms and therapy plans.
This would equip the workforce to make informed referrals and ensure parents are aware of all intervention options.
4. Streamline Access Pathways for Families Families currently navigate a maze of assessments, reports, and disconnected services. A more integrated model should:
- Recognise cognitive capacity building as an eligible support under NDIS and education funding streams.
- Reduce duplication of assessments by enabling cognitive profiling that identifies underlying weaknesses and directs families to appropriate interventions.
- Ensure families are offered not only management supports but also transformational options.
5. Address Equity Through Scalable Delivery Models The Initiative should prioritise approaches that can reach children regardless of postcode or socioeconomic background. Because cognitive interventions can be delivered in group or classroom formats, they are more scalable than intensive one-on-one therapies. This allows children in regional and remote areas to access life-changing interventions that are currently concentrated in metropolitan centres.
6. Reframe Outcome Measurement Success should not only be measured by whether a child receives a diagnosis, support plan, or therapy hours, but by whether the child’s capacity to learn independently has improved. Outcomes should include:
- Gains in underlying cognitive functions (e.g., memory, reasoning, processing).
- Academic outcomes relative to peers.
- Reductions in reliance on specialist services (e.g., OT, speech, behaviour plans).
- Improvements in confidence, resilience, and participation in school life.
7. Invest in Long-Term Cost Reduction Through Early Cognitive Intervention Funding should be strategically directed to interventions that reduce long-term reliance on costly supports. As demonstrated in the case studies, a child who strengthens cognitive functions may no longer require years of speech or occupational therapy, expensive behaviour plans, or constant classroom accommodations. The savings in both economic and human terms are significant.
Conclusion
The Thriving Kids Initiative has the potential to transform outcomes for children with developmental delay, autism and learning disabilities. To do so, however, it must address the missing piece: building the brain’s capacity to learn, rather than solely managing the consequences of its weaknesses.
I urge the Committee to consider targeted implementation of cognitive capacity programs for children within the Thrive Initiative who present with co-occurring learning disabilities, executive function weaknesses, or developmental delays impacting school readiness. These interventions also provide a critical bridge for children on the autism spectrum with additional learning difficulties, and for those with developmental delay who require cognitive strengthening to access education.
By embedding cognitive capacity building within the national framework, supporting pilots and training, and ensuring equitable access, the Initiative can:
- Reduce reliance on fragmented and costly service models.
- Deliver measurable improvements in learning, behaviour, and wellbeing.
- Empower families with interventions that create genuine transformation rather than lifelong dependency.
The children represented in the case studies are living proof of what is possible. With the right approach, many more children can move from struggling to thriving.
Joanne Dickenson BA., Dip Psych., Dip Soc Sci., Dip Ed., MEd
General Manager
NeuFocus
0410045134
7/460 Roberts Road, Subiaco
Making Learning Easier