22/10/2026
This week is Invisible Disabilities Week.
As an Autistic, disabled woman, I know that being articulate, working and advocating publicly can make the difficulties happening behind the scenes harder for others to recognise. What someone sees in a meeting tells them very little about the preparation, adjustments and support that made it possible.
That matters in conversations about support needs assessments and gatekept access to supports. Assessments need to recognise the support already holding someone up. If that support makes us appear independent, it cannot then become the reason we are assessed as needing less help.
People also need help to navigate the processes through which their needs are judged. Finding practitioners, gathering evidence, completing forms and repeatedly explaining your most difficult experiences can be overwhelming, especially without money, resources or someone alongside you.
These processes can demand the very capacities a person needs support with: planning, organising, communicating, managing uncertainty and following things through. When someone struggles to complete an application or respond to another request for evidence, we need to ask what assistance they require to continue.
Otherwise, access risks depending on how well someone can make their case, how much they can afford to spend proving it, and whether they have someone who can keep pushing when they cannot.
We also need to recognise that our support needs do not exist in a vacuum. They are influenced by the circumstances under which we live.
Violence, abuse, poverty and housing insecurity can compound disability-related difficulties and increase support needs. They can disrupt routines, relationships and access to care, and take away the safety and resources that help someone manage everyday life.
I know personally how extensively abuse, financial disadvantage and life stressors can affect capacity. What I can manage when I am safe, supported and have access to resources is very different from what I can manage when I am frightened, exhausted or overwhelmed. What I managed previously cannot simply be treated as proof of what I should be able to manage now.
Those same circumstances can also make it harder to access help. Someone dealing with violence or insecure housing may be trying to gather reports while managing immediate safety concerns, disrupted appointments and competing demands on very limited money and energy.
Assumptions about informal support need scrutiny too. Having family members does not automatically mean safe, available or sustainable assistance.
Support needs assessments and access processes need to account for these realities, including how needs change over time and what happens when existing support falls away.
Invisible Disabilities Week is often about acknowledging disabilities that are not always immediately obvious. But it should also be about whose needs are believed, what we require people to do before we believe them, and whether the support offered actually makes everyday life safer and more manageable.
Surviving without adequate support should never be mistaken for evidence that we didn’t need it.
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OT Society for Invisible Disabilities - OTSi Invisible Disabilities Association Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Australia & New Zealand Reframing Autism Australian Autism Alliance The Australian Autism Alliance
[Image: A square graphic with a dark teal background. White text at the top reads “Invisible Disabilities Week, 18–24 October 2026.” Large white text in the centre reads “Invisible disability. Real support needs.” A yellow line underlines “support needs.” A green lanyard patterned with yellow sunflowers and an attached sunflower card appears in the lower-left corner. The white Heidi La Paglia Consulting logo sits near the bottom centre.]
